Sleep
by Nadri
Summary: Hokage's orders are the law. That's a fact. So when she orders Hatake to make sure that Haruno actually sleeps, or something like it, and takes her meds, refusement isn't considered. From either side KakaSaku, SasuNaru ect. ect. Mrated.
1. Chapter 1

_Hiya, this is my story, Sleep. This is a KakaSaku story, so if you don't like it, bye-bye. I don't really give a damn if people think that it's sick or twisted, that's your opinion, and this is mine. _

_The first chapter gives you some info, about what has happened, and maybe some information about what will happen, but be warned, if you don't like, or are afraid of SasuNaru pairing, I am deeply sorry, since that will take a part of this story too._

_Okay, The story takes place six years after the whole "Let's go to sand save Gaara and fight those evil black-red robes, so that makes Sakura and other younger people somewhat 22 and Kakashi 36._

… _But anyway, here is the first chapter. Steal, and I'll send something very nasty to bite you. _

_Oh yeah, this might spoil something for you, if you haven't read those recent chapters. And no, in this story there will be no Sai, because I just don't know enough of him. _

_Disclaimer: The character's and the backgrounds of this story belongs to Kishimoto –sama-sensei. _

_And thanks for this chapter's beta-reader: Sexy Taka. bows her head _

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_Sleep chapter .1_

"_I think that it'll go away with time… but if it doesn't, I promise that I'll inform you again."_

Twenty-two year-old Sakura dragged her feet trough the gates of Konohagakure and entered into it. Behind her came the rest of her current team; Shikamaru, Shino, Hinata and Lee.

Three weeks before they had been ordered into the border of grass and leaf to collect some information.

As it had turned out, most of the mission had been running for their lives, trying to kill the anonymous enemy ninja and mending those who were always at the border. In all, the mission had been rather dreadful.

"I don't ever again want to go to the border. The whole place reeks of death, and it's way too troublesome for my taste."

Sakura turned her head to look at Shikamaru who was looking troubled, tired and most of all hungry.

Before Sakura had the chance to answer the taller and more silent man answered.

"I highly doubt that you'll be free of the border. Usually everybody is sent there once in a year."

Shikamaru shot an annoyed glare to Shino who was walking next to him, "You're a real shunshine aren't ya?"

Hinata caught up to Sakura and set her footsteps with hers. Within the past years the two of them had made a strong friendship.

Hinata played with her fingers and pondered if she should open her mouth.

Sakura watched as her friend clenched her fists and bit her lower lip. She made a small smile and spoke, "You're going to see Kiba again, aren't you?"

Hinata turned her gaze to Sakura, blushed and after that smiled. "Y-Yes. Kiba-kun asked me to come and m-meet him after my mission." She blushed a bit, and raised her hand to her mouth. "But I'm not sure if I should go now, or tomorrow morning."

Sakura smiled. She was just so sweet. Hinata was almost innocent. And now she was asking her advice.

"I think you should definitely go tonight. I'm sure that Kiba-kun would like that," Sakura winked at Hinata, which made her blush even deeper shade of red.

It was a known fact in all Konohagakure; Hinata had gotten over Naruto, and fallen almost immediately for Kiba.

As for the rest of her current team, things were different depending from person to person.

Lee was teaching taijutsus at the academy and attending missions from time to time.

Shino was doing his family's business, whatever it was he never was one to talk too much.

And Shikamaru ---he had married Ino one year and three weeks ago, and now she was expecting their first child.

As for herself, Sakura did what she had always done, studied everything that had something to do with medics, went on missions, and lived.

_'So much has happened in the past years. Since we left to Sand and fought with Akatsuki, since Sound invaded Konohagakure, since Tsunade and Jiraiya managed to pull Sasuke-kun out of Sound's grasp, since-'_

"-kura-san"

Sakura opened her eyes and met Rock Lee's face.

"Hmm?"

"We asked your opinion."

Sakura continued looking puzzled

"If we should go and meet Tsunade-sama now, or in the morning."

The answer came out of her mouth without thinking: "In the morning. It's already half past midnight and she probably has something better to do." _'Like drinking sake or betting.'_

Her team mates' faces showed some relief; after all, they had been away for three weeks, and everybody wanted to get see their loved ones.

After reaching the so-called "center" of Konoha, the team shattered into five different groups, each going on their own ways.

"Sakura-san!"

"Hmm?"

Hinata was watching Sakura with worried eyes.

"You will try to take it easy, won't you? "

Sakura smiled.

**XxX**

Konoha's graveyard wasn't a big place. It lay beyond the training grounds-- beyond the memorial stone. There really weren't many graves, only a few. Those who had died without getting their names on the memorial, and those whose family had wanted to stay out of the memorial's grasp.

Haruno Yuzuku and Arashi had been one of those people who hadn't gotten their _full name_ on the memorial, because their daughter hadn't wanted it. She had only agreed to put their fist names on it, but she wanted that their last name wouldn't be mentioned.

She couldn't really say why she enjoyed going to the graveyard, or why she did it, but since few years ago, it had became a tradition for her to do after missions.

Maybe it was because her parents were after all dead and buried, and she wanted to have at least some sort of a connection with them; or maybe it was because it was the only place where she wouldn't be bothered.

She walked past the tombstones until she reached one, which was made of plain wood. She kneeled before it and bowed her head.

' _Hi. I'm back again. Alive and in my full spirit. Whether you like it or not. So how are you doing? Probably not too well, since you're dead………….'_

As her talking went on and on, the raindrops started to fall from the clouds above.

**xXx **

Maito Gai was walking along with Kurenai, Asuma and Anko from the training grounds towards the village. Because of his greatness of youth, he had insisted that they would walk the longer way to Konoha, so that he could prove to everyone that he really had the greatness and stamina of youth. Even though now 'everyone' was only Asuma, Kurenai and Anko. But that didn't change the fact that he had to prove it.

So they walked. Even when it had started to rain, and Anko had started to curse Gai's near assholic stubbornness, since he had refused to run from the rain. Maito Gai didn't run from such a petty thing as plain rain.

Then the plain rain turned into a raging squall.

Asuma's cigarette went out, Kurenai's hair was damp with water in seconds, and Anko's face frowned in rage.

"Damn it Gai! If I get sick because of your stupid urges, I swear that you'll find my next set of dango sticks shoved deep into your-"

"Hey look, is there a person?" Kurenai was pointing towards the graves far before them, and as they all looked, they saw a small figure crouched before graves.

"Why, yes it is. And it seems to be female." Gai had lifted his hand to shield his face from the rain. "And a young one too. Ah the freedom of youth!"

"More like the freedom of the stupid. She'll catch a death disease, staying in this rain." Anko frowned again. She had newer understood why some people were in rain of their free will.

"That one won't." Asuma had dumped his cigarette and was now looking at the figure with focused gaze. "If my eyes tell right, that one's the only pink haired kunoichi there is. The medic under Hokage-sama."

Gai's eyes widened suddenly, as he realized that the far-away girl was Lee's beloved Sakura-san. The pink haired girl with a fiery will. "Aaah! It's Sakura-san! One of my eternal rival's whelps!" As Gai started to rant about his 'eternal rival', the rain only seemed to get heavier.

"Look, I don't really understand that why we're standing in a rainstorm while we could be at home, or at the Jounin lounge, eating dango drinking tea, or something stronger; but if you're going to continue standing here, then I'll just fucking go ahead and let you all catch that death disease you can from this weather."

Kurenai agreed with Anko on this one. She didn't want to catch any colds and lie in the bed because of it.

" Ah, Anko-san is as right as ever, it would be a total waste if we would catch something as futile as a cold, and our youthful bodies would only suffer from it." Gai started to march towards the village, but stopped as Kurenai voiced out her thoughts.

"But what about the medic? Shouldn't we at least ask if she wants to come with us? A medic or not, it can't be healthy to stay in this storm."

Anko groaned in frustration. It wasn't like she had anything against the medic girlie, quite the opposite, but she just wanted to get the hell out of the rain.

"Ah, you're right Kurenai-san! It would be terribly rude and very dishonourable if we didn't ask her to come with us. After all we must try to protect the blossom of youth in womanhood!" He took a deep breath and readied himself to shout at the distant girl from the top of his lungs, but was stopped when Asuma's hand clamped his mouth.

His eyes hadn't left the girl since he had spotted her. He had watched as her figure had stayed still in the hard rain. "Do not interrupt a praying person." Three pairs of eyes stared at Asuma. His face had no emotion, but something told them that he was being serious. "It's rather rude, plus I've heard that it brings bad luck for those who interrupt, and even worse things for those who are interrupted." With that said, Asuma pulled his hand away, and started walking towards the village.

Anko was really starting to get tired of these people. Obviously they couldn't decide what to do anymore. Maybe it was time that she would take the lead of this group, "Hey! What about the medic?"

"She's an adult is she not? I'm sure she knows what's good for her." Asuma didn't turn his head as he spoke, the only thing what he did, was light another one of his white cancer sticks.

They watched as the broader man walked slowly towards the village, and took their last glances from the far-away figure and then left.

**xXx**

The rain itself had lasted for two hours. It had ended half an hour ago. Now it was something between three and four in the morning.

Sakura was soaked; her hair was plastered to her face and clothes clung to her body (which reminded her of a wet t-shirt contest).

She hadn't used words for a while now. Just sat before the wooden planks and thought.

As the first rays of light started to appear from the east, and she could feel them warming her cold body, she rose from the ground. Her sore muscles protested a bit, but she chose to ignore it.

She made a small nod to the tombs, and made her way towards the village.

**xXx**

The clock ticked away in the empty waiting hall before Hokage's office. It was 4:45 am in the morning and Sakura was sitting on a hard wooden bench on the hall. She had pulled her right leg to her chest, and now she rested her head against it. Her eyes were open, but occasionally she would close them for a minute or two.

She waited.

As they had agreed, they would meet Tsunade-sama early. Probably too early for the lady's taste, but the sooner they would give their mission report, the sooner they could get to enjoy their free time.

Yet, six o'clock in the morning could be way too early for the current Hokage.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Then a half an hour.

The rising sun coloured the white walls and floor with pastel yellows colours. She watched as the yellow line stretched and stretched further into the empty lobby.

When the clock was fifteen to six, she started hearing soft footsteps coming up the high and steep staircase (which really were true killers).

A smiling and slightly ravished looking Hinata came up the stairs. Her hair was a bit messy, her blouse had the buttons wrongly put, and there was rather healthy red tinge on her cheeks.

She hummed softly and seemed to be very happy, but as she noticed Sakura, half awake to the world around her, her happy face was marred with worried eyes.

"Sakura-chan…"

Sakura had always liked Hinata's voice. Most of the time it was rather quiet, but she could put more emotions into a single words she said than anybody else Sakura knew. Right now her voice told her that she was worried.

Sakura made a small smile to tell the other girl that she was fine, physically.

"Don't worry Hinata. Everything's fine." _'Or as fine as things can be when you haven't really slept more than some hours in the past weeks.'_

Hinata looked at Sakura. She was aware that her own appearance wasn't the best, since Kiba-kun really hadn't wanted to let her go just yet, but the pink haired girl in front of her seemed to be even worse condition than herself. Sakura's long hair was a real mess, her clothes seemed to be a bit damp, and her jade-green eyes seemed to have that familiar non-fixated look in them.

But before she could say anything, there were more sounds of footsteps coming from the stairs, and a moment later the rest of their five-person group had gathered into the lobby.

Most of them looked like they hadn't really had much sleep, but Rock Lee had probably slept quite well, since he was almost bouncing off the walls, while rambling on about non-important things.

Shikamaru looked dead tired, but there was the same satisfied smug in him that could be found in Hinata.

Shikamaru looked at the kunoichi sitting on the bench. He would lie if he didn't say that he had seen the girl have better days.

"You just can't do as people tell you to do? Can you?"

He made it clear that he was quite annoyed with her. The thought made Sakura smile.

"Where would be the fun in that?"

Shikamaru placed his hand on his forehead. "You know, lately you have been almost as troublesome as Ino used to be."

"I won't deny that."

As they continued their small bickering, Hinata giggled and Shino shrugged his shoulders.

"Sakura-san!" Lee's voice interrupted the nice 'conversation' that she was having with Shikamaru.

"Yes?" Sakura questioned.

His eyes were bulging out of the sockets as he would see something most hideous thing.

"Your shirt! And your clothes! They're damp with water! Who did this to you? The sweet blossom of Konoha, who could do such a hideous thing as push you into the pound, or throw a bucketful of water on you? That person must be punished, in the name of youth!"

There was total silence in the lobby. Shikamaru's mouth hung open, Sakura stared with wide eyes with Hinata, and Shino made a small grunting noise.

" Just so you to know Lee." Shino's voice was deeper that it normally was but whether he was suppressing laughter or annoyance was anyone's guess. "It rained trough the night rather heavily."

They could almost see the wheels turning inside Lee's head. _'1+1 equals…'_

"Sakura-san! You spent the night outside? Why? The door to my humble apartment is forever open to you! Why shan't you use it!"

Again every one of them was at loss of words. Sure their minds were working faster than their mouths, but for some reason nothing came out.

This time though, Sakura was saved when the door to Hokage's office was opened, and they could hear Shizune tell them to come in.

**xXx**

The Hokage's office was a big, usually well-lit room, but now there were curtains in front of windows.

Their current Hokage was suffering from one of the hardest hangovers she had endured since the celebrations of beating Orochimaru. Tsunade had to admit, that last night she had had too much of her favourite sake, and maybe she shouldn't have really bet on those numbers, but there was no point in thinking past mistakes. It was future what counted. Plus she had much more important things to think about right now.

Currently there was a tiny man hammering into her forehead with a sledgehammer, and a pack of Jounins who were giving their mission report.

As she watched the Jounins who stood before her desk, she noticed that most of them looked quite ragged and in need of a bath, and a week of lasting sleep.

'_It's always nice to notice, that you're not the only one who has it bad.'_ Tsunade smiled through her hangover.

As Shikamaru started to talk, Sakura noticed her past mentor's anguish. Tsunade's face lacked the usual colour, and her hair was almost as messy as her own.

' _Great, Tsunade-sama's been off drinking again. Wouldn't really want to be in her pants right now. The hangover must be even more shittier than what I'm feeling right now._'

Shikamaru continued his report, and when he was in the part of the civilians near the border, Tsunade started to rub her temples in an effort to get rid of the mind-blasting headache.

"Hokage-sama?" Shikamaru had stopped and the other four Jounins were watching Tsunade with a question in their eyes.

"Ah, sorry, sorry" She waved her hand. "I'm just suffering from a killer headache, which won't go away. Please continue Shikamaru."

"You want something for the headache Tsunade-sama?" Sakura had been watching her mentor's face, and since she was a medic, it was her responsibility to help those in need of medics.

"You have something? It ought to be pretty strong, the mild stuff won't work on me." Tsunade was watching her former student with interest. She seemed to be in the nastiest shape of the group, but her eyes were as sharp as they had always been. If Sakura were to have something for the hangover, she herself could really concentrate on the report instead of that tiny man in her head. Sakura pulled out a small pouch inside her pack. A small bottle was placed on the table.

"That's ekikyabe. Or more like it was normal ekikyabe, but since it didn't really do the things what I wanted it to do, I mixed it a bit."

Tsunade stared at the bottle on the table for a moment. It looked harmless, and it probably wouldn't have any poison in it, but for some reason, she knew that it would probably taste horrible. She shrugged her shoulders, opened the bottle and emptied it into her mouth.

Five Jounins stood still as their leader sat her eyes closed. Two minutes went in total silence and then the Hokage opened her eyes. She looked brighter than she had seemed in days.

"As you were saying Shikamaru, the civilians near the border?"

Hinata released the breath she had been holding. Sure she knew that Sakura wouldn't ever give anything un-edible to people close to her, but she could have made the mistake of giving something else to their Hokage. It was their luck she hadn't.

A full hour passed in the report giving, and the Hokage finally asked the last question.

"And how about you? Did you get any injuries, or any other un-healthy physical conditions?"

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Hinata kept throwing glances towards Sakura, who kept staring at the wall, like she hadn't even heard the said question. Lee was watching both of the girls, and Shikamaru seemed to be in inner anguish. Only Shino seemed to remain really calm.

Finally, Hinata opened her mouth, "Tsunade-sama. There-" Hinata never finished what she had to say, because Sakura took over the current 'problem.'

"I didn't really sleep during the mission, but I highly doubt that that's a real problem." She kept her eyes fixated to the wall, and tried to avoid Tsunade's eyes.

"You didn't sleep at all?"

Sakura shrugged her shoulders and turned her face to meet Tsunade's eyes. " Maybe a few hours."

"How much did you sleep during the three weeks?"

"Something about 15 to 25 hours." Her face didn't even flinch when she said it out loud, even thought it was the first time she said it out loud.

"Do you feel tired?"

"Sometimes."

Tsunade pinched her nose between her fingers and sighed.

"Right." _'This might complicate things a bit. '_ She lifted her head again to look at the Jounins. "Thank you for your good work. Every one of you should go and have the medics take a closer look at you. I don't want you to go falling down the stairs because of some un-known disease from the border. Eat, rest, and don't give a damn if somebody comes and tries to challenge you." She pronounced the word "challenge" and stared sternly at Lee's face.

"Dismissed, everyone but Sakura; you stay."

As the other four walked away from the room, they watched Sakura over their shoulders with curiosity and worry in their eyes. The door closed. Sakura stood still and started to watch the walls again.

Tsunade placed her hands under her chin and leaned them on the table.

"Sakura." Tsunade started. "I know how you hate it when people try to hen you, but I cannot overlook this." She pulled a drawer open and took out a paper folder. She opened the folder and took some papers out of it. "According to your last report, you couldn't sleep at all on your previous mission, which was seven weeks before? The one what lasted for five days? " Tsunade watched as the young woman nodded.

Tsunade sighed again and her face frowned. As she had thought, the problem wasn't as small as it might have seemed. She captured Sakura's eyes with her gaze and watched her sternly to make her point.

"Sakura. This isn't some random sleeplessness anymore. This belongs to the category insomnia."

Sakura nodded again. " I know that."

"Then you must also know that I won't watch from the side when my student is suffering. Whether you like it or not, I WILL step into this."

Sakura nodded for the third time.

"Now, what I suggest is that you take some sleeping pills, or maybe some sleeping weed-"

"They won't work. Not much at least," her voice wasn't more than a rasp whisper, but it silenced Tsunade in seconds.

Tsunade blinked twice. "What! How do you know that they won't work on you Sakura? Many other people with sleeping problems have-"

"That's because, it's because of them I've been able to sleep lately. Or at least most of my sleep has been because of those drugs." She wrapped her arms around her front, and hugged herself. "And I really, really dislike those medicines, since they only give me a restless sleep and a shattering headache's with dizziness."

Tsunade stared at her former student. Every time Tsunade thought that she might shed some light from realise the main problem in her, Sakura just pulled the carpet under her feet, and told her even worse things. She placed her hand to her mouth and watched Sakura with an unreadable expression.

"Why didn't you tell anybody?"

Sakura sifted her feet. She felt like a twelve-year-old girl again. "I…I don't really know why I didn't tell about it to anybody, I think I didn't even care how far it had actually gone." She let her eyes wander in the familiar office once again. " I was more interested in falling asleep than thinking how unhealthy or how dangerous un-sleepiness could really be. The only reason why I noticed it was because Hinata got worried, and asked that maybe I was sick or something since I couldn't really sleep."

There was silence. They both knew where insomnia could lead, but neither of them spoke. Tsunade placed her hand to her mouth. She could almost feel a new headache forming, much worse than the one she had before, flavoured with worry.

Sakura tried to avoid Tsunade's eyes. They had always made her feel a bit uncomfortable, especially when they went into the 'unreadable' mode. One could never tell what she was thinking, feeling or plotting. And it always made her feel like Tsunade-sama could see right through her and read her thoughts.

"Right. This is what we will do." Sakura lifted her head, and tore her eyes from the floor, which she had been staring at intently.

"Since your condition comes with a surprise, I don't have a cure for it, yet." Sakura's shoulders shrunk a bit. She had been secretly hoping that Tsunade-sama would have had some secret technique to get rid of sleeplessness, but alas she was proved wrong. _'Hell, I think that by now I should be prepared for when everything goes shitty.'_

"But, come back in five days. By then I'll have a potion which should hammer even that lecher's toad into sleep."

Sakura watched at the Hokage, first with amazement and then with gratefulness.

"Thank you." The emotion in the two words was really unique. It probably had most of the sleepless night, despair and the helplessness poured into it.

Tsunade smiled, and waved her hand to give her the sign that she was free to go.

As she watched her past student leave trough the door, she realized that she hadn't even asked the reason to her sleeplessness.

**x.X.x.**

After a good and relaxing shower in the Jounin's lockers, changing her clothes in the locker-room and some grocery shopping, Sakura was finally going back home to her apartment after three weeks.

She lived in an apartment flat building near Konoha's center, on the top floor. Her neighbours were nice, mostly older than her, but there were also a few younger.

As she neared the building, she noticed that something was wrong. One of her neighbours came out, saw her, blushed pretty badly and ran off in the opposite direction.

As she puzzled walked up the stairs, feeling at least a tiny bit of her to be in peace, she noticed that some of her neighbours were standing on the corridor, and staring towards the upper stores.

"What's going on here?"

One of Sakura's neighbours switched his glaze from the ceiling to her face, and blushed even more than the first neighbour she had seen in matter of minutes. The boy tried to stutter something, but somehow he managed to stumble on his feet, which caused everyone else to notice that the pink-haired-girl stood right under his or her eyes. Every one of them blushed heavily, and took refuge in their own apartments.

Sakura's mouth hung wide open, while she stood confused in the corridor. As she tried to ponder why her usually happy-go-lucky neighbours were acting quite strangely, she noticed that her arm was really starting to hurt under the weight of the brown paper bags, so she decided to think more about the matter back in her own flat.

After five stories, she was finally standing in front of her door. She pulled out her keys from her pant's pocket, and placed it into the keyhole.

The door opened with a small 'squeak' and stopped halfway in the doorway, since there seemed to be some mail blocking its way. _'So much for Naruto fetching my mail.'_

As she wondered that what kind of shape her plants would be in, she heard something.

"-Suke."

Sakura's eyes went wide and she dropped the bags. As she heard some of the glass bottles shatter at her feet, she heard also another voice, much more 'macho' than the first one, and it sounded like it was under much more pressure.

"Naruto…"

Sakura placed her hand on her mouth_. 'Oh crap! Not now, not here, for godaime's sake, not here!'_

True, it wasn't the first time she encountered her two team mates in the 'heat of their passion' as Lee had put it once, so she didn't blush anymore, but it didn't really take the embarrassed feeling, or the stuttering speech, or the really, really uncomfortable feeling away from you. Plus for some people there were the nosebleeds. _'Lucky me, at least I don't have the danger of dying for blood loss from my nose, unlike poor Hinata..'_

She took deep breaths, and tried to calm her inner confusion. _'Okay, what could be worse from those two what you haven't yet seen?'_ Right then there was another moan coming from her living room. She shuddered. _'Okay, lots of things, but still, I have to get those two out of here.'_

Annoyance was starting to wrap itself around her. She braced herself, stepped over her ruined groceries, and marched to her living room.

"Okay look you two, I really don't have anything again-" her voice got caught in her throat as she realized what she was watching.

The two of them were quite wrapped around each other, Naruto's mouth hung open, and his eyes were clenched shut. Sasuke on the other hand had his back towards her, and apparently they had had one of their urged 'quickies' since he was still wearing his pants.

It wasn't the fact that they were doing it in her apartment. It wasn't that they did it here, even though she had told them not to do it here. And it wasn't the fact that she would have troubles of getting this image out of her head for the next couple days.

It was that they were having hot male on male sex on her couch.

On the only thing where she could really sleep.

As every thought left her head, she realized that she should get out.

When she stood outside of the building, she watched the blue sky.

_'I need a drink.'_

x.X.x

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_Sorry, no Kakashi in this chapter, but just wait for the next one, then we'll get plenty of him. Ah, I had already forgotten how fun this could really be (if only the writing program would properly) _

_Yeah, I can't really promise anything about when I'll update, and when I won't update, since I'm pretty busy with my schoolwork and such, but I try my best!_

_Review, and I'll be one happy person._

_T-kun_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note's:_

_Wow, the second chapter so soon, I must say that I am quite proud of myself (I really am a bastard, aren't I?) Anyway, since every author always writes something strange on these parts, maybe I should too? Hmm. Thank you for the reviews, it's always nice to receive some comments, and criticism is also allowed, so feel free to put anything. _

_I noticed that the italics thoughts had lost their form in the end of last chapter, so I guess I'll try to fix it sometimes._

_Disclaimer: No I do not own Naruto, if I would I would really make it clear, that the new guy, Sai or what ever is really the son of Shuichi Shindou & Eiri Yuki, since he has his mother's appearance and his daddy's attitude. Go figure._

_Thank you for my beta-reader Dreammiko_

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Sleep chapter 2.

There he walked, feet shuffling down the old same road. He had memorized every detail etched in to the sand of the road. He was on his way to the same old thing, every day. He was going to visit the memorial. His silver hair brushed down along his headband as a soft gust of wind swept through the area. He had the same mono-toned feeling as always. Hatake Kakashi was always the same now, never changing.

It was true that he had been walking a similar road to the one beneath his feet. The long and winding road of his life. With its many twists and turns and unsuspecting crossroads he now always expected the unexpected.

As a kid, he had believed strictly to the rules, and living by them trying everything in his power not to resemble his father. Yet, when time had passed, and he was thrust into a world of reality, he had found out that rules really weren't all they were meant to be. He had really found out the meaning behind Obito's words.

"_Those who don't care about their comrades are worse than trash."_

Now, he lived by his dead friends words, noticing that his life was shaped into this unusual form. His life, in general; mainly consisted of the simple things in the life of a ninja. He would go to missions as well as visit the memorial to see Obito, Rin and Yondaime, always catch up on his reading of the Icha-Icha series now and then, fight with Gai, occasionally train with his past students and so on. It really had no longer-range point in it. Life was life, it could end at any moment or point in time for all he knew, that did he know. His hand reached up and brushed the rebel hairs that fell in to his face to the side and kept walking. He sighed trying to understand where in life was he actually going.

'_Maybe I could devote my self to something new for a change…' _his thoughts bubbled about.

The fact was that he really didn't know what to do with his free time. All those things what he did, was to fill those empty spaces between missions and duties. Sure, he liked it but why in the world did he feel like he was missing some important part of it.

When he reached the memorial, his single exposed eye found the familiar name of his dead best friend and almost immediately a familiar feeling took over.

Guilt. A sinking feeling in his stomach that lurched over making him feel pained. Even if anybody hadn't blamed him, even when the last of his team hadn't blamed him, even when no one blamed him now and even when Obito's spirit had forgave him, this tiny bit of himself wouldn't stop blaming.

He wasn't sure how long he had stared at the memorial this time, he had gotten lost in his thoughts again. He moved his eyes from Obito's name to others. Names of another comrades, ninjas and another friends whose names were carved into the black stone.

Jumping over the un-familiar ones, he let his eye rest on the name of his former sensei. The third. Another person, who had died while protecting the important things of his life. He had really been almost an ideal figure of a ninja to Kakashi. His techniques were unique; he had been one of the strongest ninjas in Konoha, and then there had been those wise words of his. Yondaime's words reached into his mind. _"Of course rules and regulations are important, but that's not all there is to it. I'll tell you… You must also be able to adapt and cope with the situation." _

When he stepped in front of the memorial and let his eye wonder through the known and unknown names, his mind started to wonder.

'_Cope with the situation, huh? I wonder what you three would say to me right now.' _

A lazy image of his dead friends came to his mind. Obito was grinning as usual, Rin had his kind smile on her face, and Yondaime was looking somewhat serene.

As he started his inner conversation with his long-passed friends, the day started to move slowly from the early morning into the beautiful day it was going to be.

**x.X.x**

As Kakashi stepped inside the lounge where most jounins lingered on their time off, he noticed that there were few of the younger and new jounins, and there were those who had been there for a longer time. Like Gai, Kurenai, Asuma and Anko.

Apparently Anko tried to stick Gai with her dango stick, and the man was trying to avoid it by any cost. Kurenai and Asuma just sat next to the fighting couple, occasionally lifting their teacups from the table, when the madwoman and taller man came too close.

"Yo." Kakashi lifted his hand from his pocket to greet his friends. "What's all the racket about?"

Asuma turned his head towards the fighting couple, "Anko is returning a favor to Gai." Asuma's response made only Kakashi's face frown in confusion.

Kurenai giggled softly, and said in a bit hoarse voice, " You could say that Anko blames Gai on this cold what we caught on last night, since it was Gai's idea to walk the longer road to the village instead of the shorter one."

Kakashi nodded, and decided not even try to understand why Gai had wanted to take with longer road. Because he knew that if he would ask about it, there would be one of Gai's memorable ''The greatness of youth' speeches, and right now he didn't want to hear a one.

'Leave it to Maito Gai to get things complicated', Kakashi thought. Right on that moment there was a distant scream of Gai's, and it was followed with a maniac laugh from Anko. 'And leave it to Anko to get things vicious.' 

Kakashi sat on the opposite couch, so that he could face the pair. He took one of the teacups, and they sat in comfortable silence for a while, occasional screams echoing now and then from the lobby. Asuma started a new cigarette, Kurenai drank her tea and Kakashi sat in deep thought.

"I take from your grim face that you visited the memorial again?" Asuma's question raised both Kakashi and Kurenai's attention from the less major things. As Kakashi responded with a simple nod, Asuma continued, "I tell you again and again that it will do you no good to dwell in the past, but since you've heard that for quite some times anyway, I guess it's only a waste to tell that to you?" Asuma looked questionably at Kakashi, who only nodded.

Kurenai watched as the man started to talk in the same manner what they had used since the time being. It was normal among old comrades to show this kind of small care taking, and express these small opinions of the other's doing, but it was clear that you weren't supposed to push you concern any further than words. Not unless there was a real reason to it. Such were the rules.

'_But sometimes the rules are meant to be bend.' _Kurenai thought as she stared into the depths of her teacup. Something told her that there was something wrong in the silver-haired Jounin, as there was something wrong in the pink-haired medic, who they had seen last night. For some reason she couldn't seem to get her thoughts away from the distant figure of a small woman in a crouched position.

As she was about to open her mouth and ask Kakashi about the girl, Gai walked back into the lounge. Kurenai's mouth hung open, Asuma left his cigarette hanging from his fingers, halfway into his mouth, and Kakashi's eye widened in surprise.

Gai had definitely seen better days. Apparently Anko had punched his nose rather hard since it was bleeding, his face had some clawed scars in it, his hands had bite marks on them, and somehow Anko had managed to ruffle Gai's hair into a poor imitation of the 'last-Uchiha-Hair' aka. Sasuke's hair.

What made them even more surprised was that, when Gai made his 'good job' pose, with thumb and all.

"Ah my friends! Nothing like the power of youth! I could just now take a full beating from Anko-san, and still feel nothing! The power of youth is unbeatable!" Gai said, and closed the distance between the couches in few steps.

"Ah! My eternal rival has joined us! What a great day this is! I have the chance to scold him about his responsibilities, without having to find him!"

Kakashi stared at Gai, who on the moment was dropping some blood on the carpet. He was going to scold him again? _'Wonder what it's this time. If I remember clearly, last time it had something to do with leg bandages, and how I used to tie them wrongly.'_

As Kakashi braced him for the coming 'lecture', Gai's eyes met Kurenai's. They shared a small nod, before Gai started, "Kakashi, I must speak to you as a man to man. This concerns a matter with such high seriousness, and importance, that I must forget our rivalry for this conversation."

Kakashi stared in amazement. Gai was voluntarily let his real ambitious side for a serious conversation?

'_Maybe I should listen to him with some interest.'_

"Kakashi", Gai stared again, " I must ask you, when was the last time you have fulfilled you responsibilities as a man?"

'_On second thought, maybe not.'_

"It is your responsibility as a man to keep the young beautiful blossom safe! To protect her from the cruelty of the world! And to know where she puts her steps, and to stop her if they are going into the wrong way! You must protect the beautifulness of the youth, and not to mention intelligent young blossom of Konoha with pride!"

As Gai continued hi rant about this 'Blossom of Konoha' Kakashi turned his head towards Asuma and Kurenai. Asuma stared at the ceiling with a suffering look, while Kurenai was covering her face with her hand.

'What on earth? Apparently they know what Gai is talking about, but-' 

"What Gai means is, that we think you should know that one of your ex-students was spending a lot of time in the graveyard even late last night, while water was coming down from the bucket." Kakashi turned his head from the pair to Anko, who had just appeared from the doorway. She had covered her face with a paper mask, to prevent the cold germs from spreading to other people.

"What?"

"You heard me. The girl, Haruno, was spending her leisure on the graveyard way beyond the time normal people go there."

"Why?"

This time it was Kurenai who spoke her crimson eyes flicked up at the silver haired man, "We were kind of hoping that you would know. After all she's one of your past students." She sounded like she was choosing her words with care, almost as she would watch it not to accuse him of anything. Still he managed to hear it. His jaw tightened as he thought about it. In a way he didn't have any responsibilities to his so-called ex-students as a teacher, but as a comrade and a friend…

Whether Anko, or any of the other had noticed his frown, he did not know, but when Anko started to speak again, he turned his attention to it.

" You know, I was with her on a mission some time ago. A good girl, that's what I have to say, she can fight better than most of the girls her age, and her medical skills are quite something. The only thing was that I never saw her rest, not even once. And that is a bad, really bad thing for a ninja,"

The four of them stared at Anko, who was coughing at the moment. They knew that she wouldn't mention anything unless it was worth mentioning. Like if somebody would lose a limb, you could count on it that Anko would only mention it as a mere scratch.

'_Which leads into the fact that Anko doesn't think that this is a lightly taken matter.'_

Kakashi's thoughts were interrupted when Asuma spoke the first time.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Kakashi lifted his gaze from the floor to the ceiling, and rested his back against the couch.

**x.X.x**

As Kakashi walked towards one of the best bars for Ninjas, his thoughts were completely stuffed about his former students. All three of them. The truth was, that in some time he hadn't really had time to spend with the triple like he had used to. One year ago they had mission together, trained together, and sometimes spent some leisure time together. But now, their missions were put in a chain, when other arrived, the other left. Yet there had been times when they had had time to talk for a longer time, like when he had by a chance met one of them in grocery store, or in the book store.

He felt guilty.

He knew that it wasn't only up to him to go and collect the team together, but he could have tried to have some effort in it.

He sighed. He had already made his mind. Tomorrow he would fetch the team together, and try to find out what was going on with everybody. _' Hell, if Sakura's having a hard time, most likely Naruto and Sasuke are having some problems as well.'_

He stood outside the familiar bar. Voices and distant background music could be heard, laughter, shouts and some singing.

It was everything you could really ask for a bar. The lights weren't too bright nor too dim, there was air conditioning, so that the smoke from the cigarettes wouldn't stay in there for too long, there was barstools and a bar counter, and then there were sets of those smaller table.

Perfect to party, or to drown your sorrows.

As he entered, his eyes found almost immediately two things worth noticing. First, it seemed like Shiranui Genma was having one of his rare free nights, and spending it to the fullest. Second, he saw that the before mentioned rose-haired woman was sitting at the bar counter.

He walked trough the room, and sat on the stool next to hers.

"Yo."

She turned her head from her glass to his face and made a small smile. "Hi."

As the old man came fussing over Kakashi about what he would like to drink, he duly noticed that the girl next to her was now staring into nothing as if she could see things other could not.

"So _sensei_, how have you been?" By emphasizing the word sensei, something she had dome since it was made clear that they weren't a sensei and a student, her own kind of teasing.

They talked a little, while kept drinking at the same time at time the other would make a small chuckle or a laugh to the other saying. Even though for a moment he felt like nothing had changed.

"So, " he started, " Have you been here for a long time?" He saw her smile fade for a moment, and then it was hidden behind her glass as she drank.

She seemed to ponder her answer for a moment before answering, "that depends on what time is it now."

"It's around midnight Sakura."

She turned her head towards him, and made a small, sad smile, "In that case Kakashi, I've been here for eight hours."

He watched as she refilled her cup with alcohol again, and placed the glass against her lips.

Pure astonishment must have filled his face since she laughed a little, and made a carefree smile.

"Don't worry _sensei_! It's not the first time I'm sitting here for a longer period."

Her words only grew the confusion inside his head. But it wasn't only confusion, also annoyance as he realized how unhealthy lifestyle she was having at the moment. He _didn't want _her to sit most of her leisure in some bar drinking up all day into night.

Before he could stop himself his mouth had already opened, "Why!"

Jade green eyes locked into his onyx one, and held it in its gaze.

"Kakashi, do you seriously think that I would voluntarily sit here a whole day?"

Her gaze held his eye(s) in place as he pondered the said thing.

No, she wouldn't sit here freely. She had made that clear about a half a year ago how she felt about "wasted free time sat in bar without a real reason".

So there had to be a real reason why she was sitting in the bar, _'But that still doesn't explain why-',_

His thoughts were cut when he recognized something familiar in her eyes. _'Covered annoyance.'_

The silence extended a bit until he answered.

"No Sakura, I well know that you wouldn't sit here without a reason. Want to talk about it?"

As she finally turned her eyes back to her glass, and gripped it, he noticed that her fingers were shaking a bit.

She gulped own another portion of her drink and opened her mouth, "I came back today from a rather long mission," she was tasting her own words, wondering how they would affect the Jounin next to her, "and everything was fine. Until I got home," she paused as she tried to think what to say next. She could feel his eyes on her, searching for an answer.

'_Hell,' _she thought, _'might as well tell the truth.'_

"Kakashi, don't ever do the mistake of asking Naruto or Sasuke take care of your mail, plants, or anything in your apartment while you're gone. You might lose something you really value in the progress."

She was facing him again, and had the look of amusement on his face as he counted the formula. Finally he seemed to reach the end of it, and gave a small sympathetic chuckle to her.

"So you noticed that most of your apartment demolished, decided to get a drink to calm your nerves, and got your small butt stuck into the barstool?"

She took another slip of her glass and stared at the ceiling. "Sorry _sensei_, but most unfortunately not. When I entered my apartment, they were still at it," Kakashi turned his head rather furiously at the girl, "and I kind of felt like wanting to get something to drink, since I had just returned, and there is no way I am going to go there until I'm sure they're out of my flat." She tried talk as calmly as she could, and took a calming breath, "And that's the reason why I'm sitting here. Not because of my small butt got stuck."

He could only stare at the now smiling girl. It was clear to him that she had been rather furious to the couple, but instead of starting shouting and kicking the 'active' pair out of her property, she had decided to walk away and try to forget the whole incident. He could only admire her calmness in it all.

"But you know," she continued, "I just can't really be mad at them anymore, I mean I was furious when I got here, but now it's all gone."

He smiled and felt proud. It seemed like at least one of his ex-students was able to control her feelings, "Forgiveness is a gift," he said and placed his hand on her shoulder, as an effort to show her that he was proud of her, but then the atmosphere changed. Whether he noticed or not, he continued, "It's rare to be able to forgive your friends so fast, let's hope that you never lose that gift Sakura."

When his sentence had ended he started to pull his arm away from her shoulder, but it froze when she turned with haste.

"What about you? Have you even forgiven to your friends for something what you have thought as unforgivable?" There was a small flicker of interest in her eyes, and he could clearly see it. He knew he could just change the subject and pretend like he hadn't ever heard her ask the thing, but instead he decided to answer.

"Well, let's see. There was a time when I really thought that I couldn't forgive my friends. I mean they did something really unforgivable." There was clear pain in his voice, and his eye narrowed slightly. She waited for a minute for him to continue, a moment ticked by and he hadn't said anything.

"Pray to tell me what they did?"

"…Gai tore accidentally my first Icha-Icha-Paradise."

She stared. She could gaze, with her eyes wide open. Then she realized that he was joking when she saw his eye tingle slightly. She punched him lightly on his shoulder, and muttered a small "idiot".

"Ah, sorry Sakura, but I couldn't miss the chance." As she only shot a dirty glare on him he continued, "but really there has been such a time when I really have forgiven some unforgivable things to my dearest friends." The atmosphere changed again from the cheery one to the death serious, and solemn one.

"Once they did something what I really hoped that they wouldn't have even mentioned, and after that I didn't speak with the two of them for weeks. Then something nasty happened to one of the two during a mission, and they rushed back here to be taken care of. I heard of it, and went immediately to their side, and realized that even though I was still very annoyed with them I had already forgiven them." His eye formed a horseshoe as he smiled to her, "It's not easy thing to forgive, but with time you really come to learn that just how important thing forgiveness is, and I am glad to notice that you Sakura already have learned that." He continued to smile at her, but was taken aback when she spoke again.

"What about yourself?"

"What about me?"

"Have you learned to forgive yourself?" He felt the room stopping, blood rushed from his face, and the only thing he could see was Sakura. She looked at him with a piercing gaze, without any traces of being under the influence of alcohol. His mouth hung open for a minute or two, but her eyes didn't break the bond what she had made with his eye. Finally he managed to grab hold of his voice again.

"I don't quite get what you mean Sakura." He tried to act like he didn't know what she meant; or more, he didn't want to know what she meant even when he did.

Denial had always been his friend.

She made a small 'tsk' sound. "Don't lie to me Kakashi, we both know what I'm talking about," she reached towards him, and placed her hand to his leaf headband, and lifted it up.

He held his sharingan eye closed as he felt her cool finger on the scar over his eye. He felt his breath getting shallow, feel small tingling sensation under her finger, and then there were her eyes; the jade green orbs looking into his own blackish-blue with a look he hadn't ever seen in them. She licked her lips, and started slowly trace her finger, from over his brow down.

"I'm a medic Kakashi, I happen to know that there is the possibility for us to repair those scars that are repairable." She held a pause here, and placed her hand onto his cheek, " But those that aren't, are often attached with feelings. Regret, hate, love and many others those are often hard to forget. Those scars won't heal unless the bearer is forgiven by the one who caused it, or if the bearer himself forgives himself."

She was again trailing his scar with her very cold finger. His breathing was getting heavier, and the soft feeling of her fingertips was something really strange on his face. His other eye had also fallen shut somewhere along the way, but when her finger stopped, and she spoke again, "Why can't you forgive yourself Kakashi?" He opened his eye, and met her gaze with a steely one.

There wasn't any plead in her voice, it was a question in need of an answer, and yet he didn't know if he could provide her with a one.

Right on the moment a drunken Jounin crashed onto both of their necks, laughing his ass off, and rambling about complete nonsense.

"Kakashi! You old pervert, hitting on your poor student? My! I couldn't have ever believed such action from you!"

Shiranui Genma was totally wasted, intoxicated, drunk, and all the synonyms for the word. He had literally crashed on the pair, now hanging by their necks, trying to get them sing some song with him, while the girl tried to slap his hand away from her neckline where his hand had tried to creep, and the man was pushing the long-haired one off his shoulder to the floor.

As Genma hit the floor with a lot of grumbling and protest, Sakura shot a quick glance to Kakashi. Their eyes locked for a small moment, then she smiled, differently what he had ever seen her smile, turned, lifted her hand for goodbye, and walked away with small steps.

"You know Kakashi," came slightly slurred and lisp voice from the floor, "That's one damn good-looking youngster." Then there was a slight bumping sound as Genma's head hit the floor as he passed out.

Yet, Kakashi only half-listened his friend's comment as his mind was filled with one main thought.

_'What the hell was that all about?'_

B

_R_

_E_

_A_

_K_

_AN's: Joy, It ended! And we got more of Gai! And we actually got a bit further, well not much, but a bit. _

_I've started the third chapter, but it probably won't come out as fast as these have, since my computer has been crashing down lately, and there's always the chance that I lose most of my stuff, so I can't make any promises. _

_Again, many thanks to my beta-reader._

_Until next time._

_T-kun_


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: No I don't own Naruto, it belongs to Kishimoto-sama-sempai.

_An: Okay, first I would like to tell you why it has taken so damn long to update. Well, I wrote this chapter about a month ago, and I send it to my beta-reader( thank you thank you thank you Dreammiko !) And she sent it back to me in a few days. But my computer had crashed during those days, and it took me two weeks to get it working again. When I finally had "repaired" it I managed to get the thing from my mail, and when tried to open it, my computer refused to open it. So I had to open it via notepad and then use copy-paste to get it into Word, only to notice that there were all those annoying markings in it &¤&. And that's not all. Every letter had a space between them. So I've been using my 'delete' button and forward button a lot lately. And you might wonder why I didn't just open it via other computers? Well, I tried, but I didn't manage to do that, so I decided to do all this. I really hope that you appreciate my work, or at least my fingers and wrists hope for it. _

Chapter.3

x.X.x

When Sakura arrived her apartment, she was glad to notice that this time there were no annoying neighbours in the staircase, and that apparently Naruto and Sasuke had cleaned the broken glass and its contents from her small hall.

Then she had pulled her door shut, locked it with the normal one and placed one seal to it, to prevent certain people from entering. She stepped slowly into her living room and tried avoiding the couch in her range of vision, but eventually it proved to be impossible, and she looked at the only material thing what she had ever really loved.

It was demolished, and probably beyond repair. _'As if I could ever use it again, even if I had it repaired. That would be… disturbing.'_ Her eye twitched slightly at the thought and she shuddered.

She walked around her house, sliding her hands along the walls, tables, closets, everything. She opened the curtains of the living room window, or more like the glass wall, since it was from the floor to the ceiling, not very wide though. Behind it was a small balcony, just big enough for one person to stand.

The moonlight filled her living room, revealing the many books on the floor, table, in the bookshelf and also on top of her couch. The books were one of her ways to spend the long hours of the night. Some of them were about medics, others about distant countries and useless information and then there were just plain stories about everyday life. When she turned her head to look at her small kitchen counter and the book lying on top of it, she frowned.

The book on top of the counter was rather big, heavy and boring as hell. It was the only 'study book' she was having at the moment. After reading it, she would have to take exam about it, and see if she was fit to work at the hospital. Why she had agreed to even take such a task, was still a wonder to her, since she really hated the place, and would rather work at the border than in the hospital. And she hated the border.

She opened the small door, and let the warm night air fill the rooms, which weren't as musty as she had thought what they would be.

'_Apparently Naruto did do one of the things what I asked him to do.'_

She walked into the small kitchen, and saw that the brown paper bags had been emptied, and that the stuff inside had been inserted into her closets. She took a glass out of one cupboard, filled it with water and walked back into her living room.

She placed the glass on the floor, and sat down next to it, and started to stare the moon trough the open door.

'_Nights are always the same.'_ She lied down on the floor and put her arm over her head. She closed her eyes and started slowly relaxing her limbs.

x . X . x

_The team seven was currently in the Uchiha household, in the east-side of Konohagakure, trying to hold back one of it's past members from escaping the safety of the village, and to prevent the 'Uchiha prodigy' from doing more harm to himself._

_He of course couldn't care less what the village thought of him, or what they thought was best for him. The only thing he had interest for was to kill that certain person. _

_When Tsunade and Jiraiya had finally summoned their 'animals', and managed to pull Sasuke out of Orochimaru's grasp (on the final moment, to be clear) and managed to kill the bastard (that wasn't as easy as it really sounds. Seriously!) Tsunade had pushed the unconscious young man to the rest of the team seven, and told that she would be spanking the idiot's ass some other day, since now her skills were needed at Konoha's infirmary. _

_They had decided to take him back to his house, and see if he would be calm enough to listen to them, but as it had turned out, the boy was NOT happy with the current situation, shouting insults at everyone from everything. _

_And now the shouting had developed into a fight between Sasuke, and the rest of the team seven, who were preventing him to achieve his goal; the front door. _

" _Sasuke-kun, it's no use trying to get out of that door. Tsunade-sama herself sealed the whole house with sealing jutsu what can only be removed by herself, " the pink haired girl said to the grown boy, who was trying to get towards the door, but was constantly stopped by the two previous friends of his. _

"_Yeah you idiot," said Naruto who had joined Sakura, and was now standing in front of Sasuke, and had grabbed the front of his shirt, "you can't get out of here, so will you calm down?" _

"_Let go of me you assholes! This has nothing to do with you, in fact nothing what I do has anything to do with you people, so Fuck Off!" He pushed Naruto's hand away, and Sakura flinched a bit. Naruto frowned. _

_Naruto was really staring to get pissed off with this 'More angst than before Sasuke' and his way of behaving. _

"_Oi! Teme! Will you stop acting like somebody had just dumped you! It's really starting to tip me off!" Sasuke looked somewhat annoyed at Naruto's words, and after a moment smirked with the mouth of his. _

" _Hnnn. I see that you're still the dobe you used to be, no style at all. " He tried to make his way to the front door again, but was stopped this time by Naruto, who grabbed the lilac knot in the back and threw the taller boy at the wall. _

"_Don't you dare to turn your back on me you bastard! You have no idea at all what we have been trough to get your sorry ass back to Konoha! You have no right to talk to us like we were some shit on your shoes, or like we were lower than you!" The rage could be read from Naruto's face, the usually light whisker like scars were once again thick and wide, and his hand was clenched into a fist, and he was waving it at Sasuke, who was staring, dumbfounded at Naruto. _

"_Wh-What the hell did you do Dobe!" _

"_I threw you at the wall idiot! "_

_Disbelief filled his face completely. He, Uchiha Sasuke couldn't have ever thought that Uz umaki Naruto, the dead last of academy, his Dobe, could ever attack him without him noticing it, and yet he just did. _

_As Sasuke raised from the ground and started his verbal fight with Naruto about Naruto's lack of abilities, Sakura turned towars Kakashi, who had again taken that orange book of his out of his pocket, and was happily reading trough the sentences. Or more like, was pretending to be reading. _

_Sakura noticed that his eyes weren't moving much, and that he was staying alert probably all the time, near the door if something were to happen. Kakashi must have felt her eyes on himself, since he lifted his face from the book, and made (that's what she thought, it was hard to tell trough the mask) a small smile. She placed her hand to her face, and pushed some pink strands off her eyes. _

_She knew she should be separating the fighting males, but for some reason she didn't. Maybe it was because the sounds what they made were almost the same what they had made long time ago, when they all had been young and innocent. She rested her back against the wooden wall next to Kakashi, and closed her eyes. _

_It took ten minutes until the occasional screams and shouts gave her a pounding headache. When she opened her eyes, she saw that her sensei was once again deep in the book, and Sasuke and Naruto had again developed from the verbal abuse to hand-to-hand battle. There was a killer glint in Sasuke's eyes and Naruto's face had the same determined look what he always had when fighting an enemy. _

'_So much for those memories.' Sakura thought bitterly. She sighed, and pushed herself off the wall. She could feel that Kakashi had his eye on her back now. She walked next to the fighting couple, and tried to place her hand on Sasuke's shoulder, but on the instant her hand touched him, he twisted, and tried to pull a swift punch towards her face. Maybe it was on instinct he had for enemies coming from behind, or maybe he hadn't thought that she would really try to grab him and he was expecting Kakashi to do it. Whatever the reason was they did not know, but it was Sakura's luck that she managed to block the hit with her arm just before it would have hit her face. Somewhere in the back she could hear Naruto's angry growl, and the snap of Icha-icha-paradaise as Kakashi clenched it shut. _

_Yet, the only thing she could see was Sasuke, the boy who she had sometime thought with warm feelings, and now all she felt was emptiness when she realized that she didn't even know him anymore, maybe she never hadn't known him. _

_Sasuke's eyes widened, when he noticed that his hit was blocked, and they widened even more when he realized just who he was bout to hit._

_Sakura's face frowned, and she pulled Sasuke's feet under him with her free foot. _

"_Surprised?" Anger marked her voice and her face was harder than he had ever seen. _

_Silence filled the room, and it was interrupted when a knock came from the door. Four pairs of eyes darted to it. Without a word Naruto grabbed Sasuke, and pulled him with some trouble to the next room, Sakura placed her hand on the hilt of her katana, and Kakashi stepped next to the door. _

"_Oi, Hatake! Tsunade wants the girl, Haruno to her office immediately. I was send to fetch her." Shiranui Genma stood outside the door with a scroll from Tsunade, allowing him to open the door for a few minutes. He opened it with haste, and motioned the girl to come out quickly._

_Kakashi looked at Sakura who looked slightly confused. After a moment she nodded and run trough the door to the demolished streets of the Uchiha district. _

_x.X.x_

_Tsunade looked at the girl, who was panting slightly and stood before her desk. _

"_Sakura, sit." _

_She did as the hokage said, and sat on the wooden chair. Something told her that this was serious. The room was silent expect Sakura's fast inhaling. _

_Tsunade bit her lip, and decided to get on with her issue. It was no use to stretch it more than it already was._

_x.X.x _

_Six months ago her parents had said that they didn't want anything to do with a daughter who didn't do as they said. Her mother had said that she would be disgracing her family by being a medic and a ninja instead of living a usual life of housewife and mistress. Her father had called her 'wasted goods' and 'trash' and wished that she wouldn't never again show her face in his presence ever again. After that she had moved out at the age of fifteen. She had got a part time job at the Yamanaka flower shop, and a one-room apartment near it. _

_Now she was standing in the dark room that currently served as a morgue. _

_There were two steel tables, and on top of them lay two bodies, eyes wide open, bloody limbs, many deep wounds, hair plastered to their face's and blood matted to it. _

_Sakura could only stare. Her lips were slightly parted, and suddenly there was no air in her lungs. She could feel Tsunade's presence behind her, and the anonymous medic next to Tsunade, watching the pink haired girl with worried eyes. _

_Sakura stood next to her mother's body, and placed her hand on her chest. Her throat was slashed open, and it was clear that killing her hadn't been the only thing her killer had done. Without a word Sakura placed her hand on her mother's throat and started to close the wound there with her chakra. When it was fully closed, she moved to the other wounds, sealing them, and afterwards taking a piece of cloth, dampening it with water and wiped the blood off her body. Then she moved towards the other table where her father lied, and researched his wounds. _

_Her father had deep wounds in his chest, but the cause of his death was too, the slash in his throat. She moved trough the same motions what she had done to her mother, and as the final thought she closed her mother and father's eyes. _

"_Tsunade-sama." Sakura's voice wasn't more than a rasp whisper in the dark room. "I have a request." _

_As Tsunade watched her ex-student's petite form, she noticed that Sakura's hands were clenched shut, and that her fists were shaking a bit. _

"_Speak Sakura." _

"_My parents will get their names on the memorial, won't they?" Sakura was facing the floor, preventing her mentor from seeing her eyes. _

"_Yes, of course. They died as a shinobi, protecting the village with their lives." The silence continued from her words, creating a soft echo from the room's corners. _

"_Don't put them," Again the faint whisper from Sakura, " don't put their names on it." _

_Tsunade's eyes widened when she heard what the girl was asking. Her mind was clouded with confusion and her mouth opened. "What! Why? You of all people should know that the names on the memorial are always honoured, always remembered and their sacrifices won't be forgotten." _

_Sakura turned her face up, and revealed her eyes to Tsunade. _

"_Then don't put their full names on it, please. Just don't put their full names." Sakura licked her lips, "I, I don't want people to know it, I mean I know that some people will know it, but not all. Not everyone." She covered her eyes with her hand and took a deep breath. _

'_More like, I don't want to see their names on it, and I don't want other people to know what I'm going trough.' _

_Tsunade studied her former student for a moment. She watched as those small breaths she was taking shook her small body, and how the dim light shone from her pale skin. _

_Tsunade nodded. _

_x.X.x _

_It was evening and she was walking towards the Uchiha household. She had made all the paperwork in Tsunade's office under Tsunade's watching eyes for her parent's funeral. After that she had left to go back to Naruto and co. _

_She didn't really feel anything. _

_She had loved them, yes. Like every child loves her or his parents and vice versa, but since their relationships had been what they were, she couldn't say that she had loved the fully. _

_But still it hurt, to realize that there really weren't anybody who was really related to her. _

_She entered the house with a scroll what Tsunade had given to her, and came to meet two men in a full fight, shouting curses at each others, smashing whatever furniture that came in contact with them. _

"_Seriously, you two can't be left alone for one second, can you?" Sakura's voice seemed to wake the two awake from their battle filled minds, and catch the attention of the silver-haired Jounin. _

"_Sakura-Chan! You're back!" Naruto had suddenly stopped fighting, his hand still on Sasuke's collar. _

_The girl made a weary smile, and nodded as she sat in a simple chair (only one what had been left standing, other were in pieces on the floor.) _

_Sasuke broke himself free from Naruto's grasp, and tried to make his way towards the door. He tried to open it, but only managed to get himself thrown across the room by the seal. _

"_Told you it wouldn't work dumbass." _

"_Shut up dobe!" Sasuke wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth and glared at Naruto who was at the moment looking worriedly at Sakura, and asking if she was okay. As she nodded Sasuke made a loathing sound in the back of his throat. Then he rose again, and continued the fight what had been on a pause for the last five minutes. _

_She couldn't see clearly, she couldn't think clearly. She knew that she wanted to get out of the house, out of this thing for a while. She wanted to sleep. _

_She rose from her chair and walked towards the door. Then Sasuke was in front of her, accusing her of something and shouting. _

_She punched him hard into his jaw, which caused him to take back a few steps. The two boys stared at the girl, who had suddenly grown angrier than ever before. _

_She told them that she wouldn't be there for a couple of days since she had other things to do than showing a bastard what he was missing. She said that all she wanted to do at the moment was sleep, and stop thinking._

"_And Naruto, hit him, kick him, kiss him, fuck him. Do whatever you have to do to make him see what he's missing." _

_After that she walked out of the house, without even noticing that Kakashi had left before, and like her, believed that the only person who could bring Sasuke back to the world of sane was Naruto. _

x.X.x

When she opened her eyes again she noticed that the first rays of sun were starting to peek trough the distant clouds.

The time was something around 4 to 5 am in the morning.

'_Yep, the nights are all the same. If I happen to dream, I always dream of the damn past!'_

Sakura reached her hand to the nearest book on her right, and read the cover.

' _The violent history of mist. Well, I have to admit that it sounds interesting.' _

x.X.x

The next four days passed. The time lingered and jumped, creating this un-natural pace of the slowest nights and fastest days.

The days passed without any incidents, meaningless as she read the book on her floor, occasionally managing to fall into the light dream state. She lived with coffee and rice crackers, not bothering to cook.

On the third morning she had noticed that her floor was covered with dust, and that the apartment was quite messy itself. She cleaned it, scrubbed the floor, washed some laundry, and finally covered the couch with a large sheet. And while doing all those little things, she also read the book. It was beyond violent, gruesome and terrifying. Maybe that was the reason why she was so stuck up with it anyway. The more she read it, the more she hated it, and the more she wanted to read it.

On the evening she decided to catch up her tai chi and yoga training. It had became a custom to her, to train something like yoga or tai chi, since Shizune had recommended tai chi as a good way to improve your focus, and Hinata had said that yoga could really calm your nerves and make you more bendy.

And it wasn't exactly yesterday when she had started, so she moved gracefully trough the different movements, with such care that every move scarred perfection. First she went trough the tai chi movements, slowly and carefully. After that came yoga, moving from stretch to stretch, position to position, each one of them giving her totally different feelings. Her muscles screamed in pain, and her limbs felt as heavy as lead.

When her three hours long training ended and she started doing her everyday stretching, her body felt the exhaustion creeping, first from the tips of her fingers, slowly towards the arms, and finally into her chest, filling it with the warm feeling of total euphoria. And yet, even when her body screams for rest, for sleep, and her mind is beyond exhaustion begging her just to close her eyes and sleep, the dreams won't come. They leave her hanging from the thin line of consciousness. She feels like crying and screaming, shouting her feelings out, how she hates the fact that she can't really sleep. But she won't she know that crying won't help her; it only makes everything feel even worse. So instead she just places her arms over her sweaty forehead, close her eyes and start counting her memories.

When the dawn of the fifth day dawned, Tuesday to be precise the sun shone trough the curtain-less windows. She had spent the night before in her kitchen, drinking green tea, and studying that damn book of rare medical cases and the way to handle them.

She rose from the barstool, and placed her ceramic mug in the sink.

'_It's time to go see Tsunade-sama.'_

As Sakura arrived to the Jounin lounge, she was happy to notice that there weren't too many people inside. Some older, few younger and then there were her friends. She walked across the room, and sat on the black couch next to Kiba, who at the moment was arguing with Neji.

"No way! There's no way that you could just go Sand and come back in two days!"

"I tell this to you flea bag, I did it."

As the bickering grew louder with Kiba's screams, which were like barks, and Neji's raising voice Sakura noticed Hinata and waved her hand at the girl. The timid girl was standing next to a simple table, filled with cups, mugs, tea and coffee. She waved her hand hastily to Sakura, trying to balance her other hand, which was holding a cup of green tea. Hinata took slow and small steps, carefully towards the couches, she hadn't never been good carrying hot things, most of the time she ended up dropping them on herself, and get burnt. Luckily she made her way to the couches safety and sat opposite Sakura, next to Neji. She smiled at her bubble-gum-haired friend, and took a sip of her tea.

"How do you do, Sakura-Chan?" Still, after many years of knowing each other, Hinata could never speak 'freely' out in the public, it was a shame, but it was also one of the many characteristics what they had become customized with Hinata.

Sakura smiled, "Well, I suppose I'm doing all right."

The white eyes filled with worry. "Are you sleeping enough?"

'_I wish I were even sleeping.'_

"Naruto! Sasuke, what a surprise! Enough banging for the day?" As Kiba looked over his shoulder for the entering couple, Sakura's back tensed. Yes she had forgiven them for 'banging' in her apartment, and for ruining her couch, but still there was still this some part of her, which refused to forgive them, and act like nothing had happened.

"Watch your mouth dog-boy." As always, Sasuke played so damn cool, that even his own ass probably got frostbitten, unless Naruto would save it.

"W-Wha-What are you talking about you idiot!"

"Like now." Naruto was blushing badly again, making that cute face of his even more 'childish' than usually. Hinata's hands flew to her nose, and she hastily retreated towards the stall with the napkins, Kiba frowned at Naruto.

Sasuke sat on Hinata's place and nodded to Neji, and as usual made the usual 'Sasuke smirk' to Kiba. As his eyes met with the girl, they widened. She was sitting there cross legged, cross armed, and a steely look in her jade eyes, telling him, _"You ruined my couch and made my day from worse to shitty, thank you." _ Trying to avoid her eyes, he decided to get something to drink for himself, as he rose, Naruto took his place, and was left under the blazing eyes.

Sasuke watched as the Hyuuga heiress watched her bloodless fingers, and sighed in contentment.

"Is your nose bleeding that sensitive now days?"

Hinata nodded, "But luckily I sometimes manage to sense it before hand, and won't ruin as many clothes as I used to."

Sasuke only listened half-heartily and kept his eyes on the pink-haired-kunoichi. At the moment she was staring at Naruto, making him feel uncomfortable.

"You know, you could say that you're sorry." He turned his head hastily towards the small woman next to him. "I-I know I have probably no right to say this, nor is it my business, but unless you want her to be like that for a long time, the least you could do is this." She placed a hot cup of coffee in his hands, and shook her head towards Sakura. He stared at the mug dumbfounded for a minute, until started to walk back towards the group. And he admitted that Hinata was right, coming home to see your friends having it on full spirit on your couch, would really make you rather grim. Maybe it was better to say that he was sorry.

He sat next to Naruto, handing the mug to Sakura. Her face softened, and her eyes travelled from the mug to Sasuke's eyes they also softened as she took the mug from his hands and muttered, "You own me a new couch, a nice one"

"Sorry about that." Sakura shook her head and rested it against the headboard. "Just, don't do that again okay?"

Sasuke nodded and turned his head towards Naruto who was now in deep conversation with Neji. Now it was Sasuke's time to frown. He absolutely hated it when his dobe shared attention to other males, even if he shoved it to some women, no matter if it was only in friendly way, but still. Naruto was his to dominate and own, and everybody else should just butt out of it. Sakura looked as Sasuke placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder and blew some hot air into his ear. The blush came immediately on Naruto's face, and he started to stutter in his speech. Neji paled a little (if that was possible) and turned his face away from the pair.

Kiba shot a horrified glance on Sakura as Sasuke continued his miniature molestation on Naruto.

"They realize that they're in public, right!" Kiba said, there was a slight blush on his face, probably more from discomfort than anything else. Sasuke was currently chewing Naruto's earlobe.

Sakura chuckled, "You haven't seen anything yet. This is nothing compared to the usual hard-core stuff what I witness."

Then there was a small scream coming from Hinata as her hands flew to her nose again, this time blood streaming from her nose. Kiba and Sakura ran to her side, the man turning her around, and handing her some napkins, and the woman took some ice out of the iced-water can, placed them inside the napkin and put it in the back of Hinata's head, to stop the nose-bleeding.

"Hold it there for a while, it should stop in a minute or two." Sakura handed the ice to Kiba, who shot a rather rude glance towards Sasuke, who was now apparently muttering some rather dirty things to Naruto, or so she thought since the blonde was blushing even more furiously. She grabbed the water jug, marched to the pair, and turned it upside-down on them. The effect was immediate, Naruto jumped off the couch, cursing and shouting again in his full spirit. He raised his face to meet Sakura's eyes and looked her with confusion.

"Look, I really don't have anything against the fact that you two like to do 'things' in public and so on, but could at least give some thought for Hinata? It really doesn't do her any good if she keeps loosing blood like this."

The confusion on Naruto's face increased, but was taken aback when his eyes found Hinata in the back of the room holding her nose with Kiba.

"Oh shit!" Naruto rushed to Hinata's side shouting apologies and asking if she would be okay. Sasuke shot an angry glare to Sakura, eyes darker than deep water, facial features stiff. It was obvious that he was blaming her from the interlude, and the loss of Naruto's attention, as it in fact was her fault. After a minute she turned her head, and started to walk towards the door. It was indeed time to meet Tsunade.

Sasuke brushed the wet bangs away from his face and turned his head to Neji, who at the moment was holding his cramping stomach. He had a concentrated look on his face and cold sweat was forming on his brown. When he was about to ask what was wrong with him, he heard Naruto's voice.

"Hey, where did Sakura-Chan go?"

x . X . x

The room was now bathing in the light of a daily sun. Showing the colours in a totally different shade. When they had been almost pale and unnatural five days ago on that morning, now they were sort of welcoming and comforting.

"Hello Sakura. I can take it from your eyes that you haven't really slept in the past nights?" Sakura made a grim smile of her past mentor's words, she was right after all, there was a slight dark shadows under her eyes, and she had hard time focusing her eyes.

"You could say so."

Tsunade smiled like a winner. "Well that is going to change now!" She stood from her chair, " I have formed the strongest sleeping potion there is, just for you. Take one sip of it, and you'll sleep at least twenty hours like a log."

Sakura smiled and looked at the table. There were two small bottles on the table. They were made of green glass, and they had steamy looking liquid inside.

"Now listen Sakura, the dosing, it is very important that you get this." Tsunade shot a firm look on her past student, as she took one of the bottles in her hands. "The dose is almost the same as in usual medicines, so you won't have any problems with that, but" Tsunade held a dramatic pause, "Do not get addicted to it. It wouldn't really make anything better. Use it only when needed." Sakura nodded. As she was about to ask how long it would take the potion to take effect, there was a bang in the door, demanding an audience. Tsunade looked irritated, and Sakura giggled.

"You can go for now Sakura, it seems like somebody surely has something to say." Sakura grabbed the potions, and marched out of the office, she walked past stressed looking Shizune, holding back Konohamaru and his gang. As she reached the lobby, she took other of the bottles out of her pocket. The liquid glittered in the sunlight playfully, whispering about the sweet dreams and the peacefulness after taking it.

'_Tsunade-sama didn't say anything about it's effective time, so I suppose I could take it now, and still make it home. After all it takes some time with normal sleeping drugs to take effect.'_

She opened the cork and took a sip of the liquid. There was no real taste in it, something close to water with some taste of cherry. The room's light went a bit dimmer, and then she noticed that she could barely feel her feet. She started to make her way towards the killer staircase, and when she was taking the fist step down, everything went dark.

x.X.x

Kakashi was walking towards the Konoha's real centre, the building, which held the Hokage's office, ANBU and Jounin HQ, and some other offices, dealing with mission and their rankings. For the past days he had tried to find out just what he should do with team seven. His thoughts few days ago, about fetching the team together and finding out their present status, hadn't been productive at all, Naruto had been gone with a fresh mission, signed to end today, Sasuke had been doing some of his community working, and Sakura had disappeared from his sing at that night in the bar, and for some reason he hadn't really felt to go and knock her front door.

Now, since he really had business in the building, he was hoping to run in with at least one of its members in the Jounin HQ, or at the lounge.

But no matter how pure, and nice his intentions with team seven's members were, some people had a different view in it.

Some people like Genma. They guy had spotted him along the way to the building, asked him about his plans for the future, and when he had mentioned team seven Genma had actually started to show his interest.

"I see, so you're going to find out how they are doing and while at it, maybe find your own company?"

Kakashi halted and turned his head slowly to face Genma. There was the same smirk on his lips what he usually used when he talked about women. For a moment he hoped that he had heard wrong.

"I mean if somebody as gorgeous as she would touch my face in a dim lit bar, hell I would most likely try to hit on her."

Kakashi sighed, shook his head and continued his way towards the HQ.

"I mean come on, have you seen her long legs? Seriously, if I had the chance I would probably-" Genma continued his ranting while Kakashi decided to close his ears. He really didn't want to hear such words about his student/friend/comrade, but what could he do? But when Genma got into talk about her height, and how useful it would be in certain activities, since she wasn't as short as most of the women in Konoha, Kakashi really felt like swatting the brunette in the back of his head. (Or doing something quite violent towards him.)

"Genma." He started, leaving the threat hanging in the air, to be read without words. The other man laughed in not-so-certain manner and scratched the back of his head.

"Okay, sorry, sorry. That was rude. But I can't help that I envy you, even if it is only a little." He said as they finally entered the HQ, and came to the bottom of the staircase.

"Envy me?"

"Yeah, if I had done like you did, I would have a totally different world in front of me." Genma explained as they rose the stairs to the 3rd floor, and stopped at the beginning of the 4th ones, the longest, steepest and most horrible staircase in whole Konoha, the stairs before the Hokage office.

"Explain that to me."

Genma smirked again. "If I had done the same thing-"

"Watch out!" His sentence was cut out when they heard a shout coming from the fourth floor, sounding very much like Shizune. Their eyes travelled fast up to the stairs, noticing a small figure in the air, falling down way too fast. The light from the windows was making it impossible to see the person clearly, but the way whoever was falling was telling that the person was unconscious.

It was probably more a reflex than anything else, Kakashi ran up the stairs to meet the figure, and catch it in the middle of the stairs into his arms, and somehow managed to keep in his balance.

Genma let the breath he was holding to pass his lips. Then he saw just who the person in Kakashi's arms was, and smirked again. " Like I was saying Hatake, if I had done like you did ten years ago, I too would be able to hold the beautiful, not to mention legal girl of my team in my arms. Just the way you do."

Kakashi looked into his lap for the first time. In his arms indeed was the only girl from his team, Haruno Sakura unconscious and cold to the world around her.

"Damn, I really should have become a team leader."

x.X.x

_An: Yay! Third chapter! I actually feel like I'm getting into somewhere. Were starting to get closer to the real thing, to the THING! _

_In next chapet: More of team seven, a bit of Tsunade, and of course the Thing!_

_I'm so happy! Thank you for reading it! I'd appreciate some reviewing, humour, phrase, criticism, anything. Not just those pleaz update…_

_T-kun_


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, they all belong to Kishimoto.

_An: Hello again! Long time has passed and many problems during it, like the complete breakdown of my ex-computer. Sad. _

_Anyway, it would be pointless for me trying to explain all the reason why it has taken so long to write this chapter. So, instead of wasting your time I present you, the fourth chapter: _

_But before that, thousand thanks to my wonderful beta-reader: Dreammiko!_

Sleep chapter 4.

x.X.x

Hatake Kakashi tried to balance the sleeping woman in his arms as he searched his keys from his pocket. Finally, his fingertips caressed the cool metal, and pulled it out. Slowly he let Sakura's foot to drop on the floor and let her boneless feeling body rest against his shoulder. As the door opened, he lifted her limp body again and stepped into his apartment.

His apartment wasn't big, or small. Not cramped, or too spacey. It was perfect for him. It had everything he needed. Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, study for his paper work and a simple living room.

His destination was his living room, or more likely the couch in the living room. Standing before it, and placing the passed out ex-student into it he started to think once again the things happened just fifteen minutes ago.

_After catching the sleeping kunoichi from the stairs, Shizune had rushed down with Konohamaru at her heels. _

_When Shizune noticed that he had catch her instead of her falling down and breaking her neck in the fall, she had thanked him for catching her, and told him that there was nothing to worry about; it was just probably the effects of the medicine that Tsunade had made for Sakura. When he had asked this so called 'medicine', Shizune had only said that she wasn't allowed to talk about it, since it was Sakura's personal matter. At that moment Konohamaru remembered that he indeed had appointment with the Hokage, and asked Shizune to let him see her. They had left the three Jounins, one unconscious and two awake in the hallway. _

_He had looked from Sakura's sleeping face to the climbing forms of Konohamaru and Shizune and to the smirking face of Genma. "You know," Genma had said, " if you don't want to take her home to sleep, I'll gladly take the job from you." He had slowly, very slowly counted to ten in his mind, cursed Genma down to hell, and turned to face him, and see the annoying all-knowing smirk on his face. He know that Genma knew that there was no way that he would actually let somebody else do it, after all, she was his only ex-female student, and because of it, it was his responsibility to do such things. _

"_So," Genma started again after grinning some more to Kakashi's glare, " you going to take her home or what?" Genma asked as Kakashi had lifted the girl in his arms to a better position. _

"_Yeah, I guess so." _

"_You don't happen to have her key, do you? Since I don't think that she would be a person that would leave her doors unlocked."_

_After a thought he had to agree with that, she wouldn't't leave her doors unlocked, not after what had happened with Sasuke and Naruto._

"_And then there's a rumor going on that says that she uses even seals in her doors to prevent unwanted visitors to come into her apartment." For some reason that didn't surprise him much, but the fact that Genma knew something like that was a bit surprising._

"_How do you know that?" _

"_Well, I happen to listen to the rumors, and trust me, that's one of the lightest ones. But newer mind that, if you hold her, I can search her pant pockets for the key, and-"_

"_I think that I'd rather take her to my apartment, and let her sleep there."_

_Genma smirked knowingly, and laughed, "What's the matter Hatake? Afraid that I'll steal her away from you?" _

_He had decided that it would be best if he wouldn't't answer; instead he started to climb the stares down. _

"_Nah, just kidding, hell, I guess I would feel the same way if I had a team of my own." He had given a nod to Genma and started his way to his own flat. _

_As he had been exiting the building he heard the shout coming from upstairs. _

"_Don't worry Hatake, I'll be sure to tell Gai and everybody else that your pink-haired friend will take most of your time today!"_

He watched as she breathed deeply, some of her hairs falling into her face, and them moving within her breath. It was the when he noticed that she was wearing her usual medic's belt. It was pressed against her hipbone, and his couch. He knew from an experience that sleeping with equipment only caused nasty bruises, so he decided to take her belt off. Funnily it was easier than he had thought. Finally being satisfied, he fetched a conformer from his closet and laid it on her.

x.X.x

It was dark. There was no light. No sound. Nothing. It wasn't scary. Just darkness floating around her body. She realized that she was sitting, and that her eyes were closed. She rose up, and opened her eyes. In that moment the darkness disappeared, and the sounds came out. She was standing in a middle of a festival.

x.X.x

The first thing she realized was that the thing under her was nice. It was soft and comfy, and had this familiar feeling in it. It had this strange stench in it though; something that reminded her of Hinata's house, but not quite. When she was about to remember just what the smell was, she noticed that her legs weren't able to straighten, and it cleared to her that she was laying on a couch. Then she panicked.

Sakura woke up with a jolt, making her sit with her back straight. Seeing that she wasn't sleeping on her own couch, she praised the heaves._ 'Thank God I'm not sleeping on my own couch. But, exactly where am I?' _

Her eyes traveled from the open window to two closed doors, to the bookshelf, to the table where her belt lay, to a comfy looking armchair and to a closet in the far end of the room. As she saw the belt on the table, something started to ring inside her head, telling her that it shouldn't't be on the table, but around her waist. But it was difficult, her mind felt as if it would still be in sleep, it was foggy, but somewhere in the deep, a little voice was telling her that if her belt was on the table where would her other clothes be?

She hastily turned her eyes on her body to check that she was still fully clothed. Her clothes were still on, though somebody had indeed taken off her medic-belt off, and given her a conformer that was now pooled in her lap. The only question was who? It seemed that it wasn't somebody unknown, since s/he had kindly took her to hers/his apartment and let her sleep.

' _Well I'm not going to find out anything if I just sit here.' _She slipped up under the conformer, and took few steps towards the first door and opened it. Behind the door was a small corridor, leading to the kitchen, or so she thought, since the smell of coffee was coming from there, and she could also hear somebody move silently in there. She passed the corridor, and prepared to see this mysterious person, but what she saw was something she hadn't expected.

Hatake Kakashi stood in the kitchen, mixing some ingredients in a plastic cup. He was wearing a blue apron on top of his usual Jounin clothes, save the vest, and making breakfast.

He turned his head to meet her wide eyes, and made the usual horseshoe smile. "Morning."

"M-Morning." Her face was marred in complete disbelief; her voice seemed to be caught in her throat.

He chucked to her expression.

"Just what happened? The last thing I can remember is leaving Godaime's room."

He smiled, and poured the mixing to a hot pan on top of the stove. "Apparently you fainted in the stairs, not exactly a healthy way to come them down if you ask me. Anyway, I managed to catch you halfway the stairs-"

"I fainted?" Her voice sounded self-loathing, and there was a disappointed look in her eyes. For a moment it confused him, but then the realization hit. She was disappointed for fainting, it wasn't anything that a shinobi, nor a kunoichi should do, or at least that what she probably thought. There wasn't any way him to comfort her, since she should be aware of the fact that it was pointless her to feel disappointed in herself since she there was no way that she could foresee her fainting. So instead he decided to change the subject.

"So did you sleep well?" Sakura snapped back from her thoughts, and watched as her ex-sensei begun to make breakfast and answered, "Yes. You have a nice couch, thanks for letting me borrow it."

He turned his head. "Anytime. Want some breakfast?"

She shook her head, "No thank you, I really should be going, I'm already been too much of a trouble for you _sensei_." She turned to leave when he spoke again.

"So do you want to tell me what's wrong?" He didn't know what urged him to ask it right now, surely there would have been a lot of better times to ask, like some other time when he wasn't holding a spatula and watching his breakfast not to burn, but still he had asked it right now, when she was leaving.

She stood still for a moment, keeping her face forward, until she gave him a glimpse over her shoulder. "Who knows _Sensei_? I myself have no idea if something's wrong or right."

Both of them stood still, his breakfast fried on the pant, slowly starting to smell burnt.

"Shizune said something about medicine." He heard her inhale deeply before she spoke.

"Kakashi, I'm already late, and I've bothered you enough for one morning. I'll see you around." With that said she walked to the door, opened it and left.

Kakashi sighed. He hadn't expected her to answer, but had hoped for it, since it would probably made some thing easier, but now it looked like he would have to work with the hard way to find out just what was wrong with her. He turned his attention back to his breakfast, which had already burned to near black state. He lifted the pan off the cooked to his sink. He took off the apron, and made his way back to his living room. The first thing he noticed was that she had forgotten her medic belt on the table. _'Now that's unusual.' _He walked to the table and picked it up, _'Usually she wears it all the time.'_

There was a sound of shattering glass, and a terrified shout coming from the open window.

"MISS! Are you okay! Please miss, say something!" He turned his head from the belt to his window, and walked to it. He saw one of his neighbors (One of the anonymous ninjas) running towards the entrance of the building. "Medic-san! Are you okay?"

With that he was running out of his flat.

x.X.x.

Sakura walked the stairs down slowly. Her mind was still processing what Kakashi had just said _"So do you want to tell me what's wrong?" 'Trust me, I would if I could, but how can I talk about something what I haven't even solved myself.' _Her mind started to feel dizzy again, but not in the similar way than night before, this was a brand new feeling, like something was circling inside her, making her whole body go warm. The late morning sun colored the open hallway with clear light. It shone trough the glass door into her eyes, making her narrow her eyes. There were voices of people who just entered the house, opening the door to it's fullest. Decided to get out of the building with the same opening, she rushed the last steps down, and ran to the shutting door. She placed her hand before herself, ready to push when her hand and the door would contact, but something went wrong. Instead of pushing the door slightly, her palm shot trough the glass, making some of the glass shatter, while rest of it formed sharp edges. The door came close, her hand sliding only further, the edges making deep, direct wounds from her palm to her forearm.

There were the sound, shouts and screams; none of them came from her. Sakura stared wide-eyed at her heavily bleeding arm with nothing seeing eyes.

Her chakra didn't work like it was supposed to work.

It had done that. Her chakra had leaked out of her hand when she hadn't meant it to do so.

Somebody was trying to talk her, asking if she was in pain.

'_Pain…That is…What...?' _

"Medic-san, Medic-san!" Apparently she had fallen on her knees. She dully pulled her hand out of the door, which caused one of the wounds only to deepen. _'Ouch, okay that is pain.' _

Her eyes wandered back to her arm, blood oozed out it, slowly dyeing her clothes with it's red. There was the smell of metal in the air, and two people were panicking around her. It was tiring…

The suddenly there was something so familiar next to her, pulling her hand up over her head, binding it hastily, and pressing the spot where her artery was.

"What happened?" Kakashi's voice was calm and shooting. He watched as she kept her eyes in her arm, and let her lips move.

"Won't work… It won't work, won't work at all."

"What won't work? Sakura, what happened." She continued to mutter the same thing over and over again, her eyes still on her arm. He turned his head from her to the panicky chuunin, who tried to explain, but failed badly, since they were talking over each other. He let an annoyed sigh pass his lips, lifted Sakura once again into his lap and started to make his way towards the infirmary.

x.X.x

The room was with and sterile. The window was open, letting a gentle breeze through it into the room, turning the pages of the open book on the table, and wipe the hairs from Sakura's face. She sat still on the stool, eyes once again in her now bandaged arm. Luckily no vitals had been clearly hit, but still she had lost a quite amount of blood. Tsunade was informed, and her ex-sensei had been shooed out of the room when she was given the routine medical check. And yet, even though searching trough her, there was still no reason to be found why her chakra had acted the way it had.

She sighed. _' So what now? Apparently my chakra won't work, at all. And if it won't work then that means…'_

Her head dropped a little, and she tried to keep the depressing thoughts away. She didn't want to think. It hurt. But no matter how hard she tried, the thoughts came anyway. _' That means that you won't be able to continue your work as a medic, nor as a ninja, not the way you used to.' _

She smiled sadly "Take all from me, will you?"

The door opened, cutting her thoughts, as Tsunade entered the room. Confusion must've marred her face, since the moment Tsunade had closed the door behind her she started to scold her about her face.

"Seriously, try to look sharp Sakura, how can I think highly of my apprentice if she keeps looking like a rag-doll?" Sakura closed her now opened mouth, and blinked her eyes. " Either way" Tsunade continued," I was informed that there had been some problems that included you, and in your present state I decided to come here and resolve the problem myself." Tsunade placed one file on the table, walked to the window and closed it and started to stare out of the window. "I heard that you fainted yesterday after leaving. Is this true?"

"Yes."

"And Kakashi caught you?"

"Yes."

"And took care of you?" Before her answers had come immediately, but now she hesitated.

"….yes." Sakura felt somewhat ashamed as she admitted that indeed she had been unable to take care of herself.

"And then there was the incident this morning…"

"….yes. He took care of that too." Sakura kept her eyes on her arm. _'Feels so great to be a bother…'_

"Now isn't that nice of him."

"Tsunade-sama. I-My chakra-"

"Didn't work the way it's supposed to?" Sakura raised her head, and met Tsunade's firm gaze.

"I went back and searched the ingredients with the medication, it turned out that it was one of the ingredients that made your chakra go into that state. There's nothing to worry about."

Sakura left the breath she was keeping trough her lips. She had been scared, really scared. Even if she would never admit it, she had been so scared. If she didn't have her chakra, what did she have?

"But," Tsunade continued, "if this keeps going on, this insomnia, that is what will most likely happen. You will lose your chakra, and it's control. And then there's this other thing."

"What?"

"When you were given the check, the medic found out that you're anemic. That combined with insomnia is not a good thing at all. You know yourself where it leads."

"..Karashi, is it?

"Ten points. Karashi, the state where one's body can't take the exertion anymore, and the body and mind will simply die." There was a silence when Tsunade kept her apprentice in her gaze, telling that such thing was not allowed. " So I suggest that you keep drinking that potion, eating some more, and-"

"Wait, the same potion? But you said that it causes-"

"Yes, I know what it causes. But right now you keep drinking those two bottles since you already have them. The next ones will be without that part."

"But how am I supposed to help those in need!"

Tsunade smiled mischievously. "I thought I gave you some lay-off, didn't I? Besides, if some of your friends really needs you, you can always use these." She threw a paperboard packet of something into her lap, which turned out to be.

"Band aids?"

"Yes, band aids and these." Another packet flew trough the air. Sakura response to the second packet was first utter silence, and the came a bit confused word.

"Condoms?"

"Yes, I thought that since you're off duty, you could give these to your friends, or use them yourself."

Sakura opened her mouth to reply, but instead closed it and stuffed the packets in her pockets and rose from her stool. She tried to take steps but staggered so badly that she sat again. Her head felt heavy again, and a small blush had risen on her cheeks. The whole time Tsunade kept her eyes on the pink-haired kunoichi, her eyes told of another problem, but then as if remembering something they lighted up.

"That reminds me." Tsunade walked to the door, opened it, and called somebody in. Trough the door entered Hatake Kakashi, his concerned eye searching her from the white room, and when spotting her from the middle his eye softened and he lifted his had.

"Yo."

"Hi." Sakura also made a small smile. _'He always seems so easygoing.' _

"As you can see Hatake, the medics managed to fix her up, just like they said, and there was no real threat of immediate death here. But still, it was indeed a surprise to find you outside the door waiting for her." If Tsunade indeed was amazed of his presence, she hid it skillfully into her own amusement.

"Yeah, well since I happened to bring her here I thought that I have the right to know just what happened. And the fact that she's my friend and comrade increases the want to know if she's okay." Sakura smiled at his response.

"Yes, I guess that would." There was a spark in Tsunade's eyes, telling them to beware, but its effect was lost, since neither of the two wasn't looking in her direction. This only made her decision stronger. Something had to be done, but not before explanations.

"I'll be expecting both of you in my within one hour." Room's atmosphere changed from the near cheery one to serious one.

"Before that, Sakura you are to explain Kakashi what has happened, and what will happen." Tsunade's face was firm once again, and she nodded once before exiting from the room. Sakura looked at the closing door, and when it was shut, a strong silence descended into the room. She could feel his gaze on her, which made her worry, should she apologize for the morning? But while wondering if she should apologize or not he started to speak.

"You're not going to tell m unless I ask, will you?" She turned her head to face him.

"You're not going to get any peace until I tell, will you?"

"Sakura." His voice wasn't hard, but it told her that now was not the time for games. He wanted the truth.

"I know, I know, sorry, I couldn't resist." She made a sad smile, "but really, there's not much to it, it's quite little thing actually."

"Yet there is something."

He was silent for a second until she replied. " I have insomnia." she tasted the words on her mouth, trying to shape them, since it was probably the first time she had actually admitted them to anybody. "I can't sleep. At all."

Kakashi was somewhat shocked; he had never thought that she would be the one to suffer from it, Sasuke yes with his past, but not the happy and spirited girl of team seven. It worried him.

"But like I said it's not so bad as it sound I just-"

"How long?" He interrupted her sentence with his own question, letting his gaze back to her turned face.

She opened her mouth, and closed it. Opened it again, until she shook her head. "I'm not sure, I really didn't notice it at first."

"And when you noticed, you didn't even think of telling anybody?"

"Hey! Maybe I didn't tell anybody at first, but if I'm not dreaming right now, which is almost impossible I really think that I am telling right now to you."

They were both openly staring into each other's faces, Sakura's face marred with frustration while Kakashi looked somewhat annoyed. Finally after long moments she sighed and dropped her head.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know that I probably should've told somebody and seek help, but I didn't. Nothing won't change the fact that it's in the past now. I just hate the idea of telling it, of admitting that I actually need help with this."

He watched as her hands clenched and how her shoulders moved within her deep breaths. "I don't want to be a burden, to anybody."

Before he had the chance to reply the door opened revealing a young medic. "Oh, sorry. I thought that you had already left so I came to clean-"

"We were just leaving." Sakura had stood up again, her legs still staggered, but it wasn't as bad as it had been. She grabbed his arm and half pulled, half pushed him out of the room.

x.X.x

"So, why are we here again?" Sakura was standing before Godaime's enormous desk, Kakashi standing next to her. Tsunade's face had a stern look. She had interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on top of them. Her eyes traveled from the pink-haired young woman to the silver-haired man next to her. Tsunade sighed.

"Right, I gave a little tough to this matter at hand and came to this conclusion. Kakashi from now on you'll be living with her, until she has her insomnia 'controlled'.

Kakashi's eye widened. He could also feel the girl to stiffen next to him. This was…a bit fast. Yet this could be the way to help Sakura, so in a way this really did favor him. He turned his eyes from Tsunade's face to Sakura. Her eyes were wide, mouth open and somehow she had this 'harassed' look on her face. Finally she managed to find her voice again.

"Are you joking?"

"Certainly not Sakura. You yourself said that he helped you out of a couple of tight situations. And there's more, you can't take fully care of yourself while using this medicine I gave to you."

"You can't just- this is, I mean-" Tsunade looked at her ex-student under her lids, and didn't't even try to his the smugness in them.

Sakura stopped her stuttering, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"What I mean is that you can't just decide something like that Tsunade-sama. You haven't even asked if Kakashi is okay with this."

Tsunade started to smile. "Oh, well since he has not objected yet, I don't think that he minds." Tsunade turned to Kakashi " Well, do you object?"

He was silent for a second, facing the leader of the village. "No. I don't object." Sakura turned her eyes from Tsunade to Kakashi. In her green eyes swirled many emotions, but probably the biggest one was questioning and wonder.

"See, he agrees-"

"But I don't know how to live with another person!" She had turned her head hastily to Tsunade, who only smiled more on the said comment.

"Then think this as a good opportunity to find out how to," Sakura's eyes widened once again, and a deep blush rose to her cheeks from anger, irritation and from embarrassment, " or if that doesn't please you, think this as a mission, scratch that, both of you will have to think of this as a mission, since both of you will be on hold of most of the B ranked missions." Sakura groaned and growled. She knew that if it was an order from the Hokage, there was no way the she could avoid it, it was an order from a higher rank, and it was her duty to follow the order, no it was _their _duty to follow her orders. Kakashi stood silently next to her, and it annoyed her. It annoyed her that she didn't know how she should feel. Embarrassed yes, but what about other feelings? Should she feel disturbed by the fact that they were going to live together? Afraid? _'Of what?'_ Happy that it was him and nobody else? Hate? _'Towards who?' _Finally trough all the confusing emotions in her mind she realizes that she can't know the answer yet, or more like she can't find it. It was too much trying to find it from the hazardous mess. Sakura bit her lip, and tried to concentrate on the vital things at hand.

"-so it's settled then. This is an order what I give you as an Hokage, starting two days from now, you will move in together. I don't care which apartment you stay, but what I do care is that you," Tsunade fixed her gaze on Kakashi, "will keep an eye on her, and watch that she takes the potion, and most of all sleeps."

Both of them nod in unison. Tsunade's eyes traveled from the medic to the lazy Jounin. Both of them being aware of the situation, yet somehow closing it.

"Is something wrong? Smile people, I'm not sending you at the border, or… Do you think that if I would do that would it help you to get some sleep?" Kakashi's eye widened, as Sakura shouted "NO!"

They looked at each other. Sakura made a small smile, while Kakashi formed his usual horseshoe.

x.X.x

They're out from the room. Tsunade gave him a stern look as they left, a look that told that she wouldn't allow any 'dim-witted idiotism' in this mission.

His eye followed her, She was a few steps ahead back turned to him, showing her frame to him. Taller than most of the women in Konoha, almost as tall as Kurenai, slender as a young tree, pink tresses falling on her shoulder blades. She walks slowly, hips swaying a little which she probably doesn't even realize. He watches as she comes to the staircase walks a few steps down and sits on the highest one. Kakashi walked to the stairs and went a bit lower, this way being able to face her.

She placed her hands on her lap and sighed. Sakura lifted her jade colored eyes from her lap and stared at him. "I guess I should say that I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For dragging you into this, you're stuck with me for who knows how long, but then again, you agreed into this, so that kind of makes my apology useless…."

"True, and besides there's no reason to apologize."

"I should also ask that why, but I have the feeling that even if I do ask why, you won't give me an answer."

Kakashi smiled. "You got that one right."

Sakura snorted and rose up. " Somehow I always do."

She dusted her pants and walked the rest of the stairs down in silence.

x.X.x

As Sakura opened her door she tried to listen any sounds that would have told her if there were somebody else in her small apartment. Whit nothing to hear, she sighed in relief and stepped inside. The door closed behind her as she sat on the floor and leaned her head against it wooden surface. She closed her eyes, and tried to keep her mind clear. It was too confusing, the whole day had been one of the strangest ones, waking up in Kakashi's flat, pushing her hand trough the glass, and being under Kakashi's care, Tsunade's decision, and everything. It made her head hurt. Too many things had happened in a little time. Pondering over them made her head hurt.

Drawing her knees to her chest, she tried to focus on the incoming, living together with Kakashi. She really didn't know how to feel about that. She wasn't bothered with the fact, but somehow the thought of living with somebody made her edgy.

'_Maybe it's good that it's him and not anybody else, maybe not. Who knows? But I'm sure that if it would be somebody else, I'd probably be throwing a fist about it. And it's not like I don't know him.'_

When they had exited the building, they had agreed that he would come to see her in two day from now on, on next Tuesday to be precise.

She sighed again, and let her feet slowly get loose from her chest, as they stretched on the floor they hit something rather big and papery. She opened her eyes and saw a light brown envelope laying on the floor next to her legs with her name on it. She took it, ripped it open, and pulled out a formal looking piece of paper.

"_Dear Miss Haruno._

_In the past months you have lived here you have only caused trouble to our humble little community. _

_We are terribly saddened by this, since you assured us that there would not be such cause as you moved in._

_Hereby we are only left with this opinion, you are evicted from your apartment. You have to leave the building on the morning of the may 5th (that's next Tuesday). We are all amazed of this rudeness from your side, and want to believe that this will not be repeated in this houses history. As for setting example for the incoming people, we will hold this month's rent payment. _

_Yours sincerely: Terrorizing Kitano, the house manager._

Her eyes moved from the hand written text to the lower part of the page.

_Reasons for eviction:_

_Several times screaming and shouting coming from the apartment,_

_the sound of banging from the apartment, both of these causing a great trouble for the other tenants. _

_Terrorizing of other tenants shamelessly with incurrent expose._

_Stealing the flowers of Yamada-san._

As she reached the last sentence, there was no water in her mouth. The letter dropped from her hand and she hit her head hard against the door.

No matter how she looked at it, her life sucked royally right now.

x.X.x

_An: Ha! It's here! Joy! Note this, in the part where Tsunade & Sakura talk about Karashi, it's not a mistake, nor should there be Kakashi. Karashi is a real state of body, comes when you haven't slept in so long time that your body just dies because of it. Sad but true. _

_Only one month 'till summer, can't really wait. The only bad thing in it, is that I have the finals before that. Crud. _

_Can't promise anything about when the next chapter will come out, so please just wait for a while. I promise that it will come, in time. _

_And now few answers to the reviewers:_

_OtakuAnime131: Yes, the were screwing each other senseless, why wouldn't they?_

_Espiritus: It'll all come clear within time._

_ElfPrincessKitty: There probably, probably will be a lemon, but if there is, I'm probably going to post it in aff. P.s. love your nick _

_Untill next chapter._

_T-kun_


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: No, I still don't own it. So there's no reason to even say "it". Because they All and it belong to Kishimoto.

_An: Well what do you know; I finally manage to update this. Even though it has been ready for ages, but then I had some trouble with all these different things and so on… But now's it's finally here! GAWD! I'm so happy!_

_Anyway, just to inform you, the thing what I said in the first AN has been changed. So be warned, there will be Sai in this fic later on.  
So Stay tuned- _

_And million billiong thanks to my b-r Dreammiko! Give her hugs and kisses! _

Chapter 5.

_xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx_

The dawn on the fourth of May was simply marvelous. The sun shone beautifully, birds sang in their chipper voices and it seemed that even the hapless squirrels of Konohagakure were enjoying themselves.

Uchiha Sasuke's day had been a living hell. In the middle of the morning night, 3 am, to be exact Naruto had been called off to an ANBU mission, leaving Sasuke sleep unaware of his lover absence. As he had waked up with his usual morning wood, his hand had only found an empty space where his blond lover should have been sleeping. So in the end he had to take care of his own 'pressure' with his own. And of course that hadn't been nowhere near as mind-blowing what it could have been, if this certain loud-voiced idiot, his own _dobe_ had been there. After that he had noticed that his favorite tea had run out, and there hadn't been anything else to eat in the household but Naruto's ramen.

And he would be damned if he would eat those, both from his own side, and Naruto's.

So without eating breakfast, he had left the house and thought that he might grab a piece from the nearby convince store.

_A bad, bad mistake._

The cleric had been a 19-year-old girl, a civilian to be exact. And she had apparently a "secret" crush for the famous "Last bloodline-Uchiha."

She had pestered him, blushed, stuttered, asked him to date her, and told how much better pleasure she could give him than others.

He had really, really tried not to blow for the girl, but when she had said that it was better for his reputation and honor to date somebody of the opposite sex, instead of the same, he had slammed his fist on the counter, forming a visible crack on the wood. Just when he was about to give her the Sharingan to the unfortunate girl, one of his comrades came out of nowhere, grabbed his shoulders, and forced his out of the store. Sasuke was pushed out of the door, making his steps stumbled a little (not that he would admit that to anyone) and grabbed the oncoming electricity pole. His breathing was heavy, and mid filled with rage. Somebody unknown, a person who he didn't even knew had dared to criticize his relationship, his bond with Naruto, and more, to dared to judge his reputation.

"For the love of the Hokage, get a hold of yourself Uchiha!" Sasuke faced Nara Shikamaru, who was holding a see-through plastic bag in his other had, on other was placed on his hip.

"Seriously, why see the trouble to scare a random civilian? I mean all she did was annoy you go into a full fire, and you nearly maim the girl. You're so troublesome."

Sasuke straightened his back and fixed the young man with a stern gaze.

"You don't understand. She dared to judge me, judge Naruto, both of us who she knows nothing of."

Shikamaru stared, his eyes telling just what he was thinking. "Has some of Naruto's idiotic ways leaked into you!" Sasuke didn't answer, but continued his stern look.

"Look, everybody gets some of that shit every once in a while, get used to it. There's nothing you could do, with both of your status and all you're bound to bring up a rumor or two, or something what you received back there. Yes it's rude, but that's life, there's nothing to it. I mean this can't be the first time that somebody unknown criticizes your relationship, is it?" Since Sasuke didn't answer, Shikamaru sighed and continued. "Okay, so lets assume that that was the first time you got criticism in your face, but you just have to learn to cope with it. I mean think about Sakura, she has probably got it even much worse than you right now-"

"What do you mean, think about her?" Sasuke's voice sounded annoyed, almost angry.

"Wee-ell, I think that this is not my place to say, but for quite some time there has been quite nasty rumors going on about her, and she knows it, but doesn't really care."

"Rumors? Like what?" Shikamaru let another this time more aggressive sigh, "Look, I really don't know what they are now, I stopped listening them about a year ago, when they were saying something about her mental state, and so on. Nasty things mostly, which aren't even true." Shikamaru turned to look back inside the convince store, the girl was now pressed against the glass, looking at Sasuke with hungry eyes.

" If you want to know what they're now, I suggest you go to Jounin Lounge and listen what the youngsters there say. But that's not the point. The point is that she handles them perfectly, she doesn't really care what people say about her." There was clear pride in his voice as he talked, "And that's really the way since usually the rumors die without attention." Shikamaru turned his head to face Sasuke, but noticed that the other guy had already disappeared.

"Figures, so troublesome."

x.X.x

"So did you hear? There's a new rumor going on" A shrilly-looking young ninja maiden talked over the terrace tea table to her current date, one of the most handsome and oh-so-sexiest Shiranui Genma, who was known of his many ladies, or more like his many dates.

"Please, do tell." He absolutely loved it. The attention, the admiring, and most of all, how the girls would blush when he flashed a dazzling smile at them.

"Well, this is quite new. I heard it just this morning, but you mustn't tell anybody about this." Genma nodded and made a small smile. Right now he didn't really care about the rumor, but since it was his way to the girl, for this time he could really hear one of those this-is-a-real-fact-rumors.

"Well, this morning when I walked past the academy, I saw Iruka-sensei talking with Shizune-Senpai, not that that would be a big thing, after all they're both kind of these persons who would-" The girl continued to sway from the ordinary rumor, concentrating only on Iruka-sensei and Shizune-Senpai. For Genma it fitted, now he had the chance to look at her other features, her nicely shaped legs for instance, sure they weren't as long and slim as the certain medic's, but still, damn.

"No, that's not the rumor, I mean it was shocking to hear what they were talking about!" Her eyes were wide, and there was this spark in them.

" You have heard the things about Haruno Sakura, haven't you?" Genma nodded, hell who hadn't? But he also just couldn't believe even half of the things, believing those rumours would require a certain state of total idiocy what he lacked.

"-yeah and after that thing I've always thought that she's just too, well strange, I mean how many people do that?" Genma sipped his tea, perhaps it was a waste to date this girl more than once, and the fact that she did believe showed that she indeed didn't lack the idioticy. Still, if he could use that to his favour... Genma took another sip out of his tea and pondered.

"-and then I heard it, she clearly said that from tomorrow Hatake Kakashi will be living with Haruno Sakura-" Her sentence was cut out as Genma literally spat out the tea from his mouth." Genma cursed, wiped his mouth in the back of his hand and gave his full attention to the now tea covered girl before him.

"What!"

"I know, imagine what kind of scandal!" She said while wiping her face. " She's so much younger than him, and weren't they once a student and a teacher? And think about their statuses, and most of all, think about how it will affect people around them, they'll be dragged down with them!" Somehow her voice didn't show any pity, instead she sounded quite gleeful.

'_So Hatake, you're really afraid that somebody would steal her away, or is there something more to this game?' _Genma's thoughts were interrupted when he saw a familiar black-headed Jounin standing next to their table, face filled with fury, rage, and somehow frustration.

"Well hello there Uchiha-kun. Enjoying the morning?"

"Hardly." Sasuke answered to the older Jounin only from reflect. His mind wasn't clear, only a mass filled from the words just exchanged, words what he had heard. _"think about how it will affect people around them, they'll be dragged down with them" _

He nodded to Genma, ignored the girl and walked away.

x.X.x

Heavy pounding on Sakura's door interrupted her current action. Packing. Folding the last shirt on the brown box, she stepped out of her bedroom, and walked the small corridor to her door.

"Is it true!" Sakura startled. Sasuke was face was only inches of her own face, eyes blazing with anger and determination.

"Is what true?" She was confused and amazed,_' what does the oh-I'm-so-great-Uchiha-that-I-can-get-you-evicted doing at my apartment at 12 am? And without Naruto no less! '_

Sasuke snorted, and stepped into her apartment, and stomped to the living room. Sakura closed the door, shook her head in confusion and sighed. She followed the Uchiha in the living room, and noticed that he was currently admiring the view from her window. An aura of total condemnation was oozing off him, making his opinion to be seen. Not really caring about her fuming friend, she walked to her bookshelf and started to pack the books in the shelf into another brown box. The silence went on, Sakura not giving any notice to the fuming man. Sasuke on the other hand kept glancing her from the corner of his eye. Something in her was totally off, like she wasn't feeling anything, or more like, as if she had turned her feelings completely off.

Finally he couldn't stand t anymore.

"I think that I asked you that if it's true." Sasuke had turned around, and now he was leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on Sakura, who without a notice continued her work.

"Yes, and I asked you that what is true? She placed a book after book in the box, slowly filling it, this way creating work for her and her mind. _'Concentrate on the books, don't give any thought to Sasuke, not a thought of how you would like to hit him, pummel him into the ground-' _ She stopped. _'No, stay calm; it's not his fault. Sasuke's completely driven by his urges there's no reason to became violent.'_

"There's a rumor. I heard it today." Sasuke's voice still held that bitter tone but some how he had managed to twist it to sound nicer than before.

"I see. Did it hold anything interesting?" She had a hunch, only a small one, but she somehow just knew that this had something to do with her current situation.

"Yes. It was so interesting that I stormed from there to here to make sure that that rumor isn't true." Sakura turned her head and faced Sasuke.

"They say that you're going to move in with Kakashi."

Silence, a smaller one this time, where his eyes gazed on hers, black to jade green. Both of their faces were calm, full of serenity, and peace of mind, both of their lips forming a straight line.

Suddenly Sasuke's eyes widened, he had found the answer.

"Have you lost your mind!" The shout came out, cutting the air like a whip.

"I hardly think so." Turning her head again, and continuing the task at hand. Yes, it had surprised her that the rumor was about the incoming, not about her current situation. That there were people who knew that she would live with Kakashi. But for some reason it didn't bother her, after all, compared to the other rumors she had heard about herself, this one was a light one, and for a change it was true.

Sasuke stared, his mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish out of water. Sakura, this pink-haired girl he had known for almost all of his life, was stating that she would move in with their ex-sensei. Acting like it wouldn't affect her at all, hell, like it wouldn't affect anybody at all.

"I can't believe you!" His fists clenched. "Here you are, placing books in a box, while the whole town will talk about you! The rumors disgracing your name and your-"

"Yes, me." Placing the final book on the box, and walking towards the kitchen counter. "And I really don't care what they talk about me in the town, if I would care, I would have done something to the rumors." Sakura rose and walked to a nearby table, which hold a glass of water, and drank some of it. Her back was facing Sasuke and she bit her lip. "And I would have told you and Naruto to stop showing your relationship in public." She glanced over her shoulder at those dark pools again.

"You have no morals!" Sasuke stated, completely stepping over her second sentence. The glass she was currently placing at her lips was slammed on the wooden table.

"Are you really seriously here to preach to me!" Anger started to leak out, and she started to lose the small peace of what she had just minutes before.

"You're out of your mind. You seriously don't have any idea how this will affect you, affect all of us." Sasuke was now walking in circles around the small room, occasionally stopping to stare at her.

"People will talk, I can already hear it, and t won't be just about you, this time it'll concern me and Naruto as well."

Sakura stopped. _'This time it will concern me and Naruto as well.'_ Before she could help herself she snapped back at Sasuke.

"What do you mean concerns you!"

"Well obviously if you're going to move in-"

" I am well aware that who am I moving in with, thank you Sasuke. But no this does not concern you." She had hastily turned around and was now facing Sasuke.

"Of course it does. If you haven't noticed we have known each other since-"

"I know that too. But that's not the point." She stepped closer to Sasuke and tapped his chest with her finger. "This does not concern you. Yes, we were, and are a team. The team seven. The hapless team. We have many names. And yet, this has nothing to do with you!" Crossing her arms over her chest and staring at Sasuke whose face had really darkened.

"What the hell are you talking about?" There it was. The pure rage what he had, the same kind of rage what he got when somebody would threat Naruto.

"This is what I'm talking about." She raised her hands, "Since you came here, you have been preaching on me how I'm doing a moral-less thing by moving in with Kakashi, by letting him _help_! You haven't asked why I'm moving in with him, or with what he's helping me with. You're only judging me from a far off view, only thinking that what the villagers will say, and how they see us connected," Eyes blazing, finger tapping on his chest, while she took steps towards her door, leading him backwards to it."And you haven't asked that what's wrong with me. Those are the reasons why this doesn't concern you."

Sasuke's eyes were wide, and somehow he felt a bit harassed. There hadn't been many times when Sakura had gotten this angry to him. Well, there was the time when he returned, and the time when they had had the first crisis with Naruto, and then there had been this one, horrible time.

So in a nutshell his mind didn't work, as it's best right now. He had heard everything she had said, but his mind didn't seem to grasp it. But since he was the Uchiha, showing confusion wasn't allowed. So his emotions switched back to anger.

"So this all makes it okay! Makes it acceptable? That you move in with Kakashi, no worries, I'm sure that you honor will remain as it is."

"You're not the one to talk about honor Sasuke. Anybody else could comment on that one, but not you." Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Sakura stared at him with clear eyes. "You know what I mean. Now get out of my apartment, I really don't have the time to argue with you, since I have to pack everything I own and move it to a unknown place." She walked past him, opened her door and stood next to it, waiting for him to exit.

He didn't move.

"I'm not going out unless you explain that what you just said."

"Get. Out. Now." Her words were punctuated well and her voice shrilling with each syllable. Sasuke didn't move, he stood, his arms crossed looking stern and angry, waiting for her explanation.

Sakura groaned, "Look, either you step out, or I will throw you out. And since my chakra has done some stupid things lately, I can't guarantee, that your neck will be the same after that."

"I already told you that-" Sasuke's sentence was cut short as Sakura took an unexpected step into his "personal space", grabbed the back of his collar, and half-pushed half-threw Sasuke through her door, and slammed it shut. Immediately she fell on her knees, breathing coming in rasp pants and her whole body shivered. _'I definitely should leave the use of my chakra as long as I have the old formula.'_

She placed her other hand on the cold floor, and wiped some hairs out of her eyes with the other.

Then came the banging.

"Dammit Sakura! Let me in! This is not finished!" Totally uncharacteristic shout of Sasuke could be heard. Her eyes went from the floor to the door and she frowned.

She did not want this, not any of this. The banging continued whit his shouts, which were only becoming more and more rude by the moment. _'Make my neighbors hate me more, will you? No, make that ex-neighbors."_

The banging was giving her a headache.

She rose, walked to her living room and stopped in the middle of it. As much as she was ashamed to admit it, she couldn't do the moving by herself. She didn't have the time, nor the strength to it. _'And besides, I don't actually have a place to move into.' _

She needed help.

Biting her lips, she walked to her glass wall, opened it and watched down from the balcony. Five stories underneath her. There was no way that she could jump in this state. She turned her head to her left and saw her savior. The fire escape ladders, made of red steel, and attached to the wall. Since there was no way of going trough the door because of Sasuke, she had to use the ladder. Quickly collecting her keys and wallet, ignoring the continuing pounding, she went back to the balcony, reached with her hands to the ladders, slowly lifting her right leg on top of the unstable railing, strained it, and made her way to the ladders.

She had almost made it down safely but towards the bottom, her leg slipped fo rcing her to grasp the step above her head. The action however held its own consequences for the old steps were rusted and sharp, tearing at the skin of her palms. As she stepped to the ground, her arms burned and her legs felt wobbly. Not a thing what would have happened if she wouldn't be under medication. _'I really, really wish that I don't have to do that again for a while, at least not while I'm on the drug.' _She looked at her palms, both of them were red, and her right palm was bleeding a bit,_' Or better, I wish I could stop taking the drug soon.' _

Sighing, she placed her hands in her pant pockets, and made her way towards the village centre.

She had to find Hinata.

x.X.x

Sakura had always disliked the small teashop in Konoha's centre. It didn't give any personal space to its customers; the tea was over sweet and most of the time cold, and everybody could hear what you were talking about.

And yet, Hinata seemed to like the place.

So the first place where Sakura went was the teashop. And for the first time that morning, luck was on her side. Her pale friend sat on one of its corners, sipping the sugary water down her throat. She walked from the door to the corner where Hinata sat, and took a seat opposite her.

"Morning Hinata."

Hinata lifted her head from the book "Sakura-Chan! I-" Maybe I was because of the darker shadows under her eyes, or the tension in her whole being, but Hinata's sentence stopped when her eyes met with Sakura's face, and she continued with a question. "What's wrong?"

Sakura made a grim smile, and brushed her hair with her fingers. She tried to laugh, but only managed to make a sound without joy. Sakura bit her lower lip, clenched her hands in her lap, opened them and sighed.

"Sakura-Chan?" Hinata's voice was questioning. Something was indeed wrong, her actions spoke loudly of it.

"I need your help. I really need your help Hinata," Sakura lifted her head, and gazed with her jade-green eyes into her friends white ones. " You know that I don't like to bother people with my problems, nor do I ask help very often but still, I really need it right now." Sakura inhaled and looked like she was about to continue, but Hinata smiled and grasped Sakura's right hand between her own.

"Anything Sakura-Chan." The smile on Hinata's face widened as Sakura looked confused. "You don't need to explain, it's fine really. And it doesn't matter that you haven't asked for help before, what matters that now you are asking it."

There was a small silence., when they could hear the waitress shouting at the customer, and the young chuunin next to them talk about his cat.

"Thank you Hinata."

x.X.x

"As you see Haruno-san, this building is old, but still it manages to catch the eyes of the young." An older woman, nearing her seventies, was walking nimbly the stairs to a four-floor building. " I've been the manager of this house since I was twenty, with my late husband, and never have I have to give any warnings to the people in this house." There was no warning in her voice, instead only pride, "But I doubt that part of that has doing something with the fact that I'm nearly deaf." She said, and let out a self-sarcastic laughter.

The woman, Ururu was an _interesting_ person. She was old and small, nearly three heads shorter than Sakura, and yet there was so much of authority in her. She had white thick hair in a traditional bun and she was wearing a house manager's Yukata.

"I see." Sakura walked behind the woman, listening to everything she said and tried to form her character.

Finally they reached the top and the woman turned around facing the pink haired medic.

"Now then, before we enter the apartment, I would like to make few things clear," There was a sparkle in her brown eyes, and every wrinkle in her face were turned into a smile.

"I do not live in this building so I don't really care how much noise you product in here, or how much of a commotion you cause, just keep your cool and try maintaining harmony between you and your neighbors." Ururu took out a large metallic ring, which held the keys to the apartments.

"Or at least show them how it's done." Ururu laughed again with her dry voice, and opened the door to the apartment number 19.

The apartment itself wasn't much bigger than her previous one, but it had something that her previous one had lacked. This one had actual windows, and not just any windows, big windows with big windowsills inside the apartment. Kitchen combined with living room, bedroom, and a toilet with a bathtub in it. Sakura walked around, opened the bedroom window, and looked outside. The location was in the opposite direction than her previous apartment, _'probably a good thing since it wouldn't be a good idea to run into my ex-neighbors anytime soon.'_

"So you'll take it?" Sakura turned her head from the world outside to the small woman on the bedrooms doorway.

"Yes."

"Good, I've had this room empty for too long." Ururu walked next to Sakura, took the duplicate of the key off the ring and placed it to Sakura's hand. "Come and take care of the paperwork later, I can see that you're in a hurry." Sakura nodded.

"What about the rent?"

"At first I thought that I should ask much more about this apartment, but since you're Hinata-sama's friend I'll give you a small discount." Sakura nodded, "I don't believe in the rumors what they say about you Haruno-san. I'm sorry, but my money might be as tight as your so I can't give you any material discount."

Sakura nodded again, and made a small smile. As Ururu said the fee, she let a small breath of relief escape her lips. The fee itself wasn't any bigger than the previous one, which it could have easily been since the place was in a really good shape however; since she still had to pay the rent for this month of her old apartment and one for her new. For now money would be tight for a bit but she would manage. Somehow, she had to.

'_It looks like no new couch for me…'_

x.X.x

"When did you wear this!" Ino's amazed question ran trough the small apartment. She was holding a long Chinese style dress made of blood-red silk before her, and placed it over her own body to see if the colour suited her from the mirror. Sakura lifted her head from her personal paperwork, which she was just about to stuff into another of those brown boxes.

"I didn't." she replied, "It makes me look like a prostitute."

"A prostitute with style." Ino looked into the mirror and smiled.

"The more reason not to wear it." Sakura replied and went back into her own part.

"And these shoes! Why don't you ever-" Ino continued her rambling about Sakura's closet and its insides as she at the same time pulled them out, folded them and put them into those brown moving boxes. Ino wasn't the only one helping Sakura, there in her now to be late apartment were also Shikamaru, Hinata, Kiba, Tenten and Chouji.

All of them stuffing her items, furniture and clothes into brown boxes ready to be moved into her new apartment. Occasionally one of them would come up with something like that dress, and ask her the same questions. When, where and how. They had arrived the night before, after she had come back from Ururu's building, her new home place. Hinata had managed to catch them after their tea session, and almost managed to get more, but unfortunately Neji and others had been called away. _'But still'_ Sakura thought _' the fact that these people came helps me more than I need.'_

Ino's rambling continued, and now she was going on about her hair, and how she should put it, of she were to wear the dress.

"Seriously Ino, if you like the dress that much, then take it. I have no use for it, nor the motivation to put myself trough the trouble for it."

Ino smiled rather sarcastically and placed a hand on her round stomach. "Unlike you, forehead-girl, I don't think it would quite fit me right now, since I do have this thing called a 'child' inside of me."

"Yah, I've noticed. You're starting to remind me of a full moon." Ino threw one of her high-heels at Sakura's head, and it found its target. Sakura winced and rubbed the back of her head.

"I was only joking. Actually you're glowing." Sakura tried to hide the small sadness in her voice, but failed badly.

"Why thank you Forehead-girl!" Ino's gaze was filled with motherly joy.

"You're quite welcome Ino-pig!" Sakura made a small smile, "So do you want these shoes then?" She lifted the black one in her right hand, "they're much like shoes for hookers which is not really my style at all. Maybe they would suit for you?" Sakura's voice held a tease and challenge, and Ino answered into it, by making an angry sound in the back of her throat and throwing a big pillow from Sakura's bed at the pink haired woman on the floor opposite the room. As the pillow hit Sakura's face, Ino walked as fast as she could in her state and started to ruffle Sakura's hair. Sakura laughed.

"Are you stating something about me forehead-girl?"

"You know I am Ino-pig!" Sakura raised her arm, and tried to brush Ino's hand away.

"Here I thought that we were in a hurry." Sakura managed to grasp Ino's wrist, lifted it from her face, and peeked at Shikamaru. He was standing at the doorway with his hand on his face.

"You two are trouble when put together."

"And yet we have managed to do more work than you," Ino walked over to her husband and fixed a playful glance on him. " As usual, you leave most of the work to the so called 'weaker gender." Shikamaru blushed a bit, and looked at Sakura over Ino's shoulder.

"Look, the other sent me to fetch you, since Chouji and Kiba managed to find something 'interesting' from the kitchen."

"Interesting?" Sakura was still sitting on the floor with the pillow on her lap. She brushed her hair with her fingers. She was confused. _'What in the world could be so interesting?' _

"I think it's just better if you would just come over."

"Right." Sakura rose from her position, cracked her back and walked after the Nara couple.

They were all standing in her small kitchen, Chouji staring eyes wide into her fridge, and the rest staring into one of the cupboards. The fact that most of them had been awake trough the whole night (Ino had fallen asleep at one point), could be seen by the bare eyes. Hinata and Tenten looked paler than normally, and Chouji looked like he had a killing headache. Kiba looked the same as usual, but Akamaru was sleeping soundly in her living room.

"So, what's wrong?" Sakura wiped her hands in her pants, and crossed her arms over her chest.

"This!" Chouji waved at her fridge, "It's empty! The only things in there are three week old milk and carrots that can start walking any moment."

"Oh, that."

"Yes that" Tenten snapped, "With what have you been living with Sakura-san? " Tenten rubbed her temples in effort to cease the incoming headache.

"Well, mostly with the stuff in that cabinet behind you." The rubbing stopped immediately. On that moment Tenten knew that there was nothing, nothing that could save her from the headache. She turned, opened the cabinet, and stared.

Finally, after two long minutes, she reached her shaking hand, and took out one packet of rice crackers and a pack of coffee, and then she reached her hand out again and took another pack of coffee. Tenten stared again.

"Let me get this straight," She turned her eyes from the items to Sakura's face, "You've been living with these?"

"Yes."

"And it looks like the whole cabinet is full of this stuff, more coffee and more crackers."

"Yeah," Sakura changed her position, "But I just came home from a mission, and I did have something to eat but most of it was ruined since-"

"You didn't just come back from a mission. It's been over a week since you came home." Ino had spoken in the middle of Sakura's sentence.

"Well, yeah, but I've been eating out sometimes, and I have rice and some ramen in the cupboard, so there's no-"

"There's nothing fresh! You've been eating this stuff for the whole week!" Now it was Chouji who was in uproar.

Sakura sighed, and stretched her shoulders. Everybody were making such a fuss. It was just food. Okay, maybe her eating habits weren't the best ones, but still, it had been a rather stressing week, and food had been the last thing on her mind.

"Look, it's been a really hard week. Could you just let it go? I swear that I'm going to eat healthier from now on. So stop worrying."

Ino changed a glance with Tenten, and sighed. "Seriously, sometimes it feels like you should have somebody to watch over you." Sakura tensed, she knew that she needed to tell them, the sooner the better, but still somehow admitting that the Hokage herself had put her under the watching eye of Kakashi, was kind of strange. _'No, not strange, since it doesn't bother myself, just odd.'_

She knew that the cats would come out of the bag sooner or later, probably sooner since Sasuke had already found out. _'So it's better if I beat the cats to it.'_

"Well, actually-" Her sentence was cut when her doorbell rang, and seven pairs of eyes moved to the door. _'Who could that be? I thought Hinata said that they were the only ones in town just now.'_ As Sakura continued to puzzle over the mystery ringer, Hinata walked to the door and opened it.

"Oh, H-Hatake-san. H-How nice of y-you to come h-here." Sakura's eyes widened._ ' Oh crap. I forgot it was today.' _

"Why thank you Hyuuga-san." Sakura could picture his face, the one eye crooked into that damn horshoe, while a smile could be felt trough the black mask.

"Ah, I-I see you have b-brought a home welcoming gift to S-Sakura-chan, how n-nice of you. But should you bring it to h-her new apartment instead o-of this one?"

"Excuse me?"

"Eh?"

Sakura slapped herself in her forehead. There was so much confusion in her small apartment, that it could be felt. The people in the kitchen were giving her strange looks, and apparently the duo in the hall were as confused. Again she was the person to remove the confusion. Taking a deep breath, and leaving was the easy part. The moment she had to step into the hall and maintain her straight face was the hard part of it. There stood the Hyuuga heiress with her hands crossed over her bosom, while the legendary copy-nin stood towering the heiress, while hold in a pot plant. Sakura smiled. _'Ukki-kun eh, should've known.' _ The plant, was probably one of those few living things what Kakashi really cared for. It was old, and it had put up with his care, but it still lived.

Sakura stepped in front of him, knowing that there were stares in her back.

"Yo."

"Hi." His body language told about the question, but for some reason he didn't ask. _'Concealed courtesy?'_ That made Sakura smile

. "Look, there has been a change of plans," She watched him nod, "I forgot to inform you, since I've been a pretty busy more like, I haven't had the time to think. Just act. So, I'm sorry. Again."

He nodded again, "That sound reasonable." He sifted the pot in his hands, "So, what changes?"

Sakura smiled again and crossed her arms. "**_We_** are going to move. Since we can't live in here."

"E-eeeeh?" Sakura shot a fast glance over her shoulder. As expected the people from the kitchen had their heads out of the door, eyes wide open. Tenten had her mouth closed, Ino's mouth formed a soundless 'what' while the rest just were gaping.

"I see," Sakura turned back to him, " May I ask why?" He looked passed her a smile forming beneath that dark mask of his from the shocked crowd that lingered in her kitchen area.

"But of course!" she clapped her hands together in front of her chest and smiled even more brightly, "It seems that my neighbors can't stand the noise what the rest of the team seven makes in here, so they 'kindly' suggested that I should move out."

"In other words you were evicted." A sigh passed his lips, and them his mouth formed a simple smile. "When do you need to be out of here?"

"That depends what time is it now?"

"It's 10 am."

"In that case we have two whole hours to get most of my stuff out of here." Again with that same sweet smile of hers on her face, "Care to help me?"

Another sigh passed his lips. "What are friends for?"

"For other friends to use them whenever they feel like it and for whatever reason?"

"Something like that yes." Another smile, and then Kakashi shoved the pot into Sakura's hands, and walked into the room. Hinata, who had been standing next to them turned to face Sakura, and only gaped at her, unable to form words.

"What?" Sakura said, while she wrapped her hands more securely around the pot.

" Y-y-you're going to l-l-live with him?" A blush had risen to Hinata's cheeks, and she had covered them with her hands.

Sakura continued to smile. She knew that she should tell the truth later, but for now it could wait this was much more fun.

"Didn't you all just agree that I should have a caretaker?"

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

_An: So there you have it. Some people have been asking if there will be a lemon in this fic…_

_I really think that those people should be informed that right now I'm working with the SasuNaru-smut-part of this fic._

_And after that I'm going to work with the KakaSaku part…_

_So yes. There will be lemons. Be alarmed._

_But since I can't post them here, they'll probably go into aff, but you'll just have to check my profile when the time comes. _

_And yes, I am aware how painfully slow I am with this, but bear with me. _

_Until next time._

_T-kun_


	6. Chapter 6

_AN: Wow, I wonder what time it was when I started to write this chapter… I guess it was somewhere around August… Oh well, you people already know that I'm slow, so you'll just have to suck it up. I'll update when I'll update. _

_I really had my fun again while writing this… The perverse side of myself got hold of me, and forced me to put that into this…_

_Disclaimer: No I don't own Naruto, blaah blaah, belongs to this one guy called Kishimoto… _

_Million Thanks to my beta-reader : Dreammiko! _

_And thousands thanks to all the reviewers, We're up to 75 now! _

Sleep chapter six.

"What is this?!"

Kakashi's question drew Sakura's head out of the kitchen cabinet she had been scrubbing. He was pointing at the pile of coffee on the table, just where Tenten had left them.

"It's coffee. A hot drink to be drank after waking up and in the middle of the day. Comes with the include of caffeine."

"I know what it is." His voice sounded annoyed. "But why in the world do you have so much of it?!"

Sakura grasped the cabinet's handle, leaned backwards and bended her head. She pondered her answer for a moment before answering, "Maybe because I like to drink a lot of coffee?"

Kakashi threw the dust rag from his hand on the table, walked to Sakura, and turned her from her shoulders around. Sakura made a small, surprised sound, and stared him with big eyes.

"Look", Kakashi said, holding his forefinger in front of her face, " the coffee isn't really such a great thing." If possible, Sakura's eyes widened more, and she looked a bit offended.

"What do you mean it's not a good thing? I love coffee! I can't live without it!" Kakashi tilted his head and smiled. "You see, that's the problem, you can't live without it, but if you live with it, what do you think becomes of this insomnia of yours?" Sakura bit her lower lip, eyes avoiding Kakashi's.

'_Fuck, fuck, fuck! He can't mean it, there's no way that I could-'_

"You have to drop the coffee." It felt like those words froze her body and mind for a second, before she expressed her feelings by shouting a fierce no.

"You can't be serious! You're kidding, right? I mean there's no way I could start my day, hell even end my day without drinking it, most of the time I can only think clearly because of it!"

Kakashi placed his hand on his forehead, in hope of stop the incoming headache. He had feared that she would object his advice, but he certainly hadn't expected her to resist this much.

"Look, it's almost clear that you are addicted to it, which doesn't really help the fact that you can't sleep" Sakura opened her mouth to protest, but he continued," Secondly ninjas, especially medics shouldn't be addicted to anything." Sakura's mouth closed, and she outraged almost oozed out of her. The green in her eyes darkened a bit, and her lips formed a thin line.

"Like you are one to talk about addictions."

"Pardon?"

"You heard me," Sakura crossed her arms over her chest, "Addiction, in other words a burning, almost killing need to use something repeatedly, no matter what time or place it is. The need comes repeatedly, and in all cases, the term addiction describes a chronic pattern of behavior that continues and is perceived to be hard or impossible to quit at any time. It is quite common for an addict to express the desire to stop the behavior, but find himself or herself unable to cease. "

Kakashi stood dumbfounded. _' Yes, it's clear that she knows the meaning of the word, but what the hell was that?' _

"Sounds familiar?" there was a mean smile on her lips, "I thought that it might since, well I think that it quite suits for you, and for the relationship between you and those little books of yours." Another mean smile was shown.

His face tightened. "Very funny Sakura."

She faked an innocent face. "Funny? Oh here I thought that you said that this is serious."

"Sakura."

"Yes Kakashi? I'm being serious here." She raised her hands in the air, "We are both addicts, yes I drink coffee more than I should, and yes, I know that it does no good for me, but you-, you read those goddamn books of yours all the time, in fact you have read those for the whole time we have known each other, _all the time_."

"It has nothing to do with this case, you're trying to change the subject."

"No, I'm not, and it has something to do with it." She gave him a stern look, "it's not fair that you demand me to quit."

"Life isn't fair, and I'm not demanding you into anything."

"Okay then how about this, I try quitting by staying two weeks without coffee," she paused for a moment, and took a deep breath, " if you don't read Icha-Icha series for those two weeks."

Now was his time to froze. Kakashi's eye widened, almost came out of it's socket. His breath stuck to his throat, and he couldn't speak. And the whole time, she looked at him under her lashes, pondering whether he would take the deal or not.

"Didn't you just say that shinobi shouldn't have addictions? Now prove me that you don't have one."

Kakashi collected himself mentally, and managed to smile again. "You're right, I shouldn't just prove you, I should be an example for you." He could see her security crumble around the edges, and a bit of uncertainty to come into her eyes._ 'If you think that you can fool me, then prepare to be fooled.'_ After all he was the copy-ninja, he couldn't let his ex-student, cute or not to pull his strings as she pleased.

"So why don't we make this a bit more _interesting_? How about a bet?"

"A bet?" It came out as a small breath, and she seemed like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Yes a bet, which one of use holds out longer without our addictions wins, and the other loses."

"I think that's quite clear." She crossed her arms again, and leaned to the wall. "What are the inputs?"

She'd taken the bait, without even thinking twice, well maybe thinking once, but definitely not twice. For a moment he really felt bad for her for the incoming.

' _Apparently she's forgotten to look underneath the underneath. Too bad for her.'_

Kakashi smiled.

"Well, that's-"

"I can't believe that you dropped it! It could have smashed Hinata's feet! " Ino shouted as she entered into the apartment trough the door, while she lectured at Kiba.

"Look, I told you it was an accident! And besides I rather bite my own arm off than hurt her!" Ino completely ignored he dog-boy behind her, and continued walking at a steady pace towards the kitchen. "And what about Sakura's bed then? If it had broken, would you have bought her a new one?"

"Of course not! I'd repair it, I don't have the money to buy a new one!"

"Hn. Right," Ino reached the kitchen, walked to Sakura and pulled the rag out of her had, and threw it on Kiba's face." That's why we are going to change roles a bit. Sakura and Hatake-sempai will be carrying rest of the stuff to the new apartment, while you and I are going to do the rest of the cleaning. Any objections?!" Ino's eyes flamed, and Kiba swore to himself never, ever to fight with a pregnant woman again in his life. It was way too scary when their hormones took control of the minds, and how they could just blow at any minute. Kiba shook his head fibrously, and turned towards the closet Sakura had been cleaning.

Sakura on the other hand looked confused. Her eyes darted from Kiba to Ino, the other had hastily started to scrub the closet, while the blonde woman held him there with a icy glare.

Deciding that it was better not to interrupt the couple, Sakura raised her shoulders in defeat at Kakashi and walked out of the kitchen.

XXxXxXxXxXxX

"So is this all?" Shikamaru rubbed his wrists as he stood in the small attic apartment, now filled with brown and white boxes from the floor to the ceiling, random furniture laying in definitely wrong places.

"Yeah, I guess so. But then again Kakashi has his stuff he has to bring here, and so on." Sakura said as she wiped few strands of hair out of her face," but then again I'm sure that we'll manage."

" That's true." Kakashi turned from the window to follow the conversation.

Sakura smiled as she placed the last box on the floor. She dusted her hands and her eyes traveled on her big bed on the doorway to the bedroom. There lay the Hyuuga heiress, in a curled up position, both hands under her face. Then Kiba walked to her, woke her up and helped her to stand up.

Hinata rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "It's been a long day," she yawned. Kiba smiled at her and rubbed her arms to warm her up, and turned his face towards Sakura. "Are you sure you can handle the rest by yourself?"

Sakura smiled. "Who said that I'm alone? I have him to lift the heavy stuff don't I? " She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb at Kakashi, who had resigned to his position by the window. He turned again, and formed the usual horseshoe. "Don't worry. We'll manage."

Kakashi watched as The dog-boy walked his "mate" to the door, only to crash into Ino.

"Sakura, you have a dashing neighbor! I think he's an artist!" The blonde crossed her hands in excitement. Her outburst met completely silence from everybody, scratch Hinata who yawned. Ino stomped with her foot.

"Sakura!"

"Right." Sakura completely ignored her friend's remark, and decided to focus on the boxes in the middle of the room.

"Sakura! I'm serious, he's gorgeous!" Kakashi opened one of the boxes, only to come across with plates and mugs.

"Good for you." She threw a glance on the box he had opened." Hey, Kakashi toss that in the kitchen" She said and walked to the book box, opened it, and started to unpack it's contents.

"Listen fore-head girl, not all of us are running freely!" Ino snapped.

Sakura shook her head and sighed.

"And what would you do if you could run freely?" Shikamaru had crossed his arms, and was now leaning against the doorframe. Ino turned hastily and stared her husband with angry eyes.

"I wouldn't do nothing and you know it! I have you, and that's enough for me, thank you very much. But since you seem to think that I run after every male-"

"That's not what I mean!"

'_Things could get ugly. If I remember correctly, Asuma once said that once you set the Yamanaka-girl on fire she won't be stopping for a while.' _ Kakashi sighed, and lifted the box into his arms.

Anger started to sweep into Shikamaru's voice as well.

Hinata leaned against Kiba's shoulder and let a small wail pass her lips. This was something so natural to them. Ino and Shikamaru fighting over the smallest things. Especially now, when Ino's hormones were on the overboard most of the time. Sakura looked her friends with a gloomy face. _' Great, if this continues, I'll fly out of here before I've settled down.'_ She rose from her crouched position, and threw a glance to Kakashi. He had taken the plate-box to the kitchen and was now placing the plates in the sink. Occasionally he would shake his head and cough. _' Well at least I know that he has patience, but then again, he did teach team seven once. '_ Sakura let a small smile pass her lips.

"-and it's not my fault if you find seducing me way too bothersome," Hinata yawned into Kiba's neck, "maybe you should try to bring some more spice into it for you so it wouldn't be so goddamn bothersome!"

"Look Ino, Shikamaru had placed a hand on her shoulder, "this is not the place-"

"Yes, this is the place." Her voice had lowered to a murderous state, informing them that after this scene there would be tears and wailing, blaming him that he never bought her flowers and so on and so on.

"Ino." Sakura started. "Thanks for the help, I appreciate it. But if you start screaming I'll be forced to throw you out of here."

This was surprising. Kakashi hadn't thought that Sakura would try to stop their bickering. He placed the last plate on the sink and decided to listen the following. He had to decoy his chuckle with a cough when he saw the Yamanaka girl gaping like fish. Unfortunately for Kakashi, Sakura noticed it and fixed him with a quick stern look.

Ino opened her mouth again, and inhaled, but Sakura was faster. She Drew her eyes from Kakashi's to hers. "And thanks for telling," a sweet smile passed Sakura's lips, " I'll look into it."

And then it happened. Ino laughed and waved her hand at Sakura. "I knew you'd be interested."

"Un. So head home now, all of you and get some sleep."

"Right." A bright smile plastered onto Ino's face. She graded Chouji's collar and Kiba's hand and dragged them out of the door. Shikamaru was left on the doorway, his left hand still in the air where Ino's shoulder had been. Slowly he turned his head to Sakura and stared. After few seconds of staring into those green pools, he let his head drop.

"I just don't get it." He muttered. "No matter how many time's I've fought with her over the years, I will never be able to stop her fuming as quickly as you do it."

Sakura crossed her left arm over her chest, and placed the other one on her face.

"Trust me, it's not as great as you think it is." She sighed.

Shikamaru straightened his back, and cracked his knuckles. Then he laughed, waved with his hand and exited. As the door closed, Sakura let a sigh pass from her lips, then she lifted her arms over her head, and stretched her back, until a small 'pop' sound was heard.

"How did you do it?" Sakura passed her gaze over her shoulder at Kakashi, who was currently leaning on the sink.

"Huh? I just placed my arms-"

"Not that," He shook his hand, "I mean the thing what you did with Yamanaka." She let her arms drop, but kept her gaze on Kakashi. Finally after a small silence she admitted.

"Manipulation. Works best when Ino's the person in question." She crouched again and started her work with the books again. " And since you have unpacked the plates, you wouldn't mind washing them?"

She gave him a smug smile, informing that this was her payback. Kakashi shot a glance over his shoulder to the plates.

No, he really didn't want to wash them. He let his eyes wander back to her from the dishes, and noticed that she had returned to her work with the book boxes. In a way telling him that the issue of the dishes wouldn't be any further discussed.

'_So, I guess that this is the way she manipulates me then.' _He smiled grimly, rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and opened the faucet.

x.X.x.

Sakura ran trough the stairs, buttoning the last of the buttons of her button-up shirt. She had left confused-looking Kakashi to stand in the kitchen with soap bubbles over

his arms. Shouted a fast bye, and waved her hand. Her hair was a mess, and she had forgotten the belt of her pants in one of the clothing boxes. In the middle of her chaos-like flat she had remembered what day it was. Or more like, she had remembered the thing she was supposed to do on fourth of May.

When she had realized the meaning of the date, her eyes had flown to the clock. 4.30 pm. Cursing loudly, since she was already running thirty minutes late, she had gotten to her feet, opened the clothing box and pulled out some cleaner clothes. Since she had no time to lose, she had pulled her shirt over her head, aware of Kakashi's presence behind her, but uncaring at the moment; she pulled the white shirt on top of her wrappings, and buttoned the buttons on top of her bosom. Then the pants, the old and patched off from her legs, and hastily the newer, a bit wrinkled on.

Kakashi on the other hand was standing stiffly, his eyes glued to the water in the sink. A moment ago he had heard her curse, and when he had turned his head to see what was wrong, he had come across to the sight of seeing her strip her shirt. After his brain had confirmed, that yes, his former pupil seemed to prefer wrappings over bra, his conscience had swatted him, saying that surely his **_former_** pupil would also want her privacy while changing. _' Then again, how do you, and for how long will you maintain privacy in a situation like this?' _ Then she was pulling her shoe into her left feet, next to the kitchen.

"Look, I don't have time to explain, since I'm running late as it is.", then came the right foot, " Why don't you go get some of your stuff here, while I'm gone?" Standing straight, she pulled her hair out of the small bun in the back of her neck.

"Sakura, what-"

"Bye!"

And she was gone. He had a feeling that things would only get more hazardous from now on.

x.X.x

After arguing with an elderly man in the doorway, and forcing her way trough the other customers of the coffee shop, Sakura found her "partner", sat across him, and let her head fall on the table with a soft thud.

"You're late."

"You don't say." The man opposite her narrowed his eyes, and lifted his cup to his lips.

" I think that I should scold you, but since it seems that this day has shown it's ugly side to you."

"More like the whole month has been messing my life gradually." Came her muffled response from the table.

"You have my sympathy." Sakura snorted at his response and lifted her head.

"I hardly doubt that. I f you would know the situation I live right now, you'd probably laugh at me, and say that I deserve it."

He crossed his hands and placed his chin onto them.

"Then please, by all means do tell me."

She studied the male before her. His hairstyle was the same, so was his smile. Eyes narrowed into slits, while his mouth was drawn into a smile. Not even one line would form on to his cheeks, leaving his skin look almost like porcelain. Then there was his clothing. No matter how many times they told him, that when new people met him, they wouldn't know whether feel offended or amused, but still Sai continued to wear the unbelievable shirt that shoved his abs and belly-button.

After a minute long stare she gave up.

"I was thrown out of my apartment, I can't sleep, and Godaime assigned me to live with Kakashi." If Sai was surprised, he managed to hide it well. The only thing that gave him out was, that he reached for his pouch for a pack of cigarettes. He draw one of the white caner stick out with his long fingers, placed it onto his lips and lit it. Then he inhaled.

"No wonder you were late. He's already rubbing off on you."

"Fuck you."

"Sorry, just popped out of my mouth. Anyway, since your life sucks so gradually want to make it even more miserable?"

She raised her eyebrow to Sai. He picked up the cigarette pack from the counter and offered it to her. She stared at it. It wasn't that she didn't want to smoke, quite the opposite. _' I guess it would be a stress releaser to smoke now and then.'_

But instead of reaching out, she placed her hands under the table, on her lap and bit her lip. "Sorry, can't."

"Can't? It's not that hard, really. All you have to do-"

"No, I really can't." She let a sigh pass from her lips. "Since I'm a medic, I have to send a proper example to others. And Smoking is not proper behavior according to Shizune-sempai." Sai took a deep drawn from his stick, and blew the fumes over the table.

"Since when have you cared about proper behavior?"

"Since my pay-check started to depend on it." Sai's eyes widened. "Are you serious? They're really giving so-and-so strict rules nowadays?"

"More or less. Lucky for me, there are no rules about the use of alcohol." Sakura made a weary smile. A smoke ring came to her face. "You know, somehow that sounds even more fucked up. Do not smoke, but please feel free to drink yourself under the table anytime, anywhere."

"Tell me about it. But if you smoke, I can at least enjoy the smell and he dangers of passive-smoking." Sakura winked at him.

"Hn." He smoked the last cent of his smoke, and dumped it in an ashtray. "So since your life sucks gradually right now, I might help you by buying a cup of coffee, right?" Sakura lifted her gaze from the table. This was… New, Sai had never in their friendship offered to buy her anything. Then came the other realization.

"No, that's all right. I don't want you to buy me coffee." Sai halted in his movement and stared at Sakura, and She stared back.

"You're fucking with my head, aren't you? You never refuse coffee, not even when it's cold, or old."

"That is a very offending statement Sai." Sakura crossed her arms. "There's no reason to make a number out of it. I just don't want any coffee."

"Because…?"

"Do I really need a reason not to want any coffee!?" Annoyance was starting to sweep into her voice. "Just order me some juice or something!"

"Touchy, touchy. Fine, I'll buy you some juice, but when I find out the reason of this abnormality, I will surely make it into my advantage."

Sakura smiled a grim smile, "Same as usual, huh?" Partners or not, they would both always make everything to work for their use.

"You know it." Sai noted for the waiter to come over, and gave his new orders to the young-looking girl. A few minutes passed in silence as they waited for their drinks, Sai took a sip of his water glass, and Sakura looked at her ruined fingernails. As the drinks were served Sai reached under the table, pulled a black bag up from there, and placed it on the table. He opened the zipper from the sides, and pulled out it's contents. Numerous papers, filled with writing, and almost as much papers full of not-so-innocent picture-pages.

"So, personal business aside, how about we get to work? I just got this back from the publisher. She said that it's good, and if luck's on our side it'll sell even better than the one before."

Sakura smirked as Sai continued to explain the selling records of the last book.

You could call this her new side-job, hobby, or even random way of spending time. They, Sai and Sakura had put together their abilities, Sai's amazing art and Sakura's drawing skills that actually were quite good. Nowhere near as amazing as Sai's, but still better than average. Plus she had the stories, head full of real life happenings, as well stories made up in the darkest nights. Since both of them had their shares of perverse mind (really now, who wouldn't?) they came up with totally different naughty/smutty/hardcore stories that sold rather well. As a silent agreement neither had told anybody just what they were "working" with. It wasn't because either one of them was ashamed, more like they tried to avoid the rumors and the buzz that would follow if somebody would find out the true identity of Tanabe Mikage and Yuuhi Keisuke. Their previous works; _Super Kableemo Passion vol. 1, 2, _and_ 3 _and _Boundary dates _parts_ 1,2,3,4½_ were rather popular among Konoha's women and few men. The stories varied from fluffy smut to hardcore porn, from heterosexual to homosexual and vice versa. Needless to say creating them was fun.

"So anyway, Ayako-san said me that you should do the story for the next one. She wasn't so exited about my story."

"Gee, wonder why." Sakura smirked, and played with the straw of her juice.

"And here I thought that we agreed that my story had a point to it."

Sakura took a sip from her juice. Lemon-raspberry, almost to sweet for her likening. "It had a point Sai, but you don't just find a tied-up bunny-boy from your closet and then start fucking him! Even I-" She stopped suddenly and placed her right finger on her cheek. "No Scratch that, I think I would do it, depending of the bunny," Sai gave her a knowing smirk, and her cheeks reddened a bit, "but the point is," she cleared her throat, "that the guy who hired the "pet-sitter" had no motive. You didn't explain why he wanted to have his "bunny" fucked by a random hot-schoolboy. So I guess if we work on it a little bit, add a few smut scenes, Ayako will accept it, and you Sai will get you Aki-bunny published."

Sai smirked again and placed his left hand on his pale cheeks. "Hmm, Aki-kun. A lovely piece of ravish-able bunny."

Sakura placed her glass on her lips again, and shook her head. "You know if I wouldn't know you, I would say that that's creepy."

xXx

Hours later she made it back to her new flat. Their meeting had taken longer than she had thought, but in the end it had turned out to be quite constructive. They had managed to collect one third of a plot of their following story. They had argued over it, over the people in it, over the fact that should it be hard core or some fluff, and finally over the "special" parts of the story and who would be the one to create them.

So in all she was spent, annoyed, in need of a shower and some "quality" time alone. She walked the long stairs to the top floor, and searched for her keys from her pocket. _'Man Ino would scold me now. I left out of my apartment without a bag.' _

A conversation that they had had a long time ago floated from Sakura's memory.

"_A fine lady doesn't leave anywhere, you hear anywhere without taking her most prized possession with her!"_

"_Her wits?" _

"_No forehead-girl, her purse!"_

"…_You got to be kidding with me."_

"_No you idiot, a purse is woman's greatest help all the time. In it can be something that will save your day when you least expect it."_

Finally grasping her keys, and stepping the last steps to the door she placed the key into the lock and opened it. She stepped inside, and immediately noticed that the room was more stacked with more boxes. She stepped over one of them, placed her left hand on the wall for support, and pulled her shoes out of her feet.

"Hi there."

She lifted her head, and gave a small nod to Kakashi, who was leaning on the wall.

"Got your arrangements done?"

"More or less." She didn't bother to explain, not at least right now. She needed that shower. She walked past him to the small living room / kitchenette, straight to the boxes, and opened one. Then she closed it. And opened it again.

It was empty. Her brain tried to function it. _'Empty, the opposite of full. Empty, which means that somebody has emptied it. And that somebody-'_

"I hope that you don't mind. I emptied most of your stuff." Sakura just stared. _'Do I mind, should I mind? If he doesn't, should I mind?'_

"I opened few of those boxes, and figured that they had some, uh, personal stuff of yours so I left them as they were." Kakashi scratched the back of his head, looking slightly exhausted. "But don't worry I didn't put your clothes anywhere, figured that you'd want to do that by yourself."

Sakura looked him over her shoulder. She didn't smile, but her expressed gratitude. "Thanks." _'I guess that it would have been a bit strange if he would have laid my clothes on the closet. Talk about awkward.' _"Are the towels in the bathroom? I'd like to take a soak."

"Yeah, they're hanging from the wall." Kakashi pushed himself off the wall and walked next to Sakura. He took a deep breath, and decided to over with it. While he had been arranging things in the apartment, a problem had revealed itself on him. Sakura had left the old and ruined couch to her previous apartment to be a headache of its next inhabitant.

"Sakura. There's a problem."

"Hmm?" She stood up, and opened the flimsy ponytail she had made in the café. "And what's that?"

"You there's no couch for me to sleep on."

She turned to face Kakashi. "I don't see that as a problem."

He quirked his eye brown. "You don't?"

"My bed's big enough for two people."

"You can't seriously mean that."

"Yes I can. Tsunade-shishou told us to take this as a mission. So." She waved her hand towards her bedroom, and turned to walk to the bathroom. "Besides, don't tell me that you haven't shared your bed with one of your friends. Or is it just a girl thing?"

Kakashi grabbed her elbow. "That's besides the point!" He was starting to get irked. Didn't she really care? If the world would get out, she'd be in the middle of even bigger rumors than before. He didn't care of himself, heel he'd been pointed to be one of the village's number perverts (mostly because of the literature he favored), or at least had been, since Naruto and Sasuke were taking his place with their streaking.

"Don't you care what people will say if they find out?"

Sakura stopped on her tracks. She turned around, and faced Kakashi with expressionless face. "No. I simply don't care anymore of what they say about me. I've grown rather tired of it." She narrowed her eyes. "But if you care, you shouldn't have accepted to be with me, since I believe that sooner or later people will find out, and then the hell will break loose. No, actually let me correct, people have already found out, so the hell will break loose in couple of days."

"And you won't mind that?"

"No! How many times do I have to say it?! I don't care! Nor do I mind us sharing a bed." She took a deep breath, and blinked her eyes "I trust you Kakashi." Then she smiled. It was almost taunting. "Don't you trust me?"

He watched as she smiled, leaning against the bathroom's doorframe, arms crossed. The amusement swept to her eyes. Finally Kakashi lifted his hands and sighed. _'Somehow I feel that I'd better not _

"Fine, whatever." Sakura laughed and closed the door.

x.X.x

She exited from the bathroom with the white-hot steam. She had wrapped her towel around her torso, her wet hair clinging to her wet neck, and her wet foot left wet footprints on the wooden floor. She walked past Kakashi who was sitting against the wall and reading one of her many books. As she reached her, (or was it now theirs?) bedroom she opened one of her clothing boxes and pulled out her black pants and a simple dark-green shirt, dressed herself and went back to the living room, pulled the gruesome book from the shelf and sat down.

The comfortable silence continued, occasionally stopped by the sound of the water dripping from her hair to the floor.

"You'll catch a cold if you leave it like that."

Sakura lifted her head. "What?"

"Your hair. If you don't dry it, you'll catch a cold." She could hear the smile in his voice. "And trust me, I'm not going to take care of you if you get sick."

Sakura offered him a smile of her own. "Then you'll just have to suck it up, since I'm not going to move from my position." With that said she dived back into her book, and failed to notice him getting up and walking to the bathroom. What she did notice was that her eyesight came full of blue towel, and the slight pain what came when Kakashi's calloused hands worked on her hair and scalp trough the towel.

"Kakashi! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Drying your hair, since you refuse to do it yourself."

"You just said that you weren't going to take care of me! This is oxymoronic."

"No, I said I won't take care of you if you became sick, this is for preventing it." She heard him chuckle.

She smiled and snaked her hand over her head and grabbed his wrist. Skin on skin contact made him stop his actions.

"What I said before, that I trust you, I really meant it." She sighed. "And thanks. I don't think that I'd be as comfortable with somebody else."

Kakashi smiled. "You're welcome. I don't think that I'd be comfortable with that either." His words were left to hang in the air as he continued to dry her hair.

x.X.x

_Ha! Now here's what you got this time! Oh, I'm deeply apologising for those burned eyes. I just have to had it, after all, it's so canon… (read reviews if you don't get it…) _

_And I would also like it, if you were to review, and write how you feel about this. Since reviews tend to make everybody so happy, but if you really don't feel like writing anything, don't bother._

_IN next chapter Naruto comes back from his mission, Sasuke makes a contribution, Sakura finds out something quite gut wrenching, while Kakashi gets pestered by his friends. Stay tuned- whenever the next update will be? _

_Until next time_

_T-kun_


	7. Chapter 7

_AN: Here's the seventh chapter. God, I can't belive I actually managed to write this, I mean life's been a bit crazy, and most of the time I don't even have time to write. And the text hasn't been beta-ed, so it's probably full or errors and fail, but bear with me. _

_Anyways thank you for your reviews and thank you for reading._

_Love T._

_p.s. And ignore the previous chapters author's notes. _

* * *

Sleep chapter seven.

Living with her hadn't been anything he had thought. Or more like Kakashi hadn't thought what it would be like.

Sleeping with her, waking up with her eating with her, talking with her, arguing with her.

He hadn't really given it a thought before it had all started. Or even if he had, there was no way that he would allow himself to admit it.

After all, this was Sakura.

Sakura-chan. The _sweet_ part of team seven. He had never thought that he himself, Hatake Kakashi, the copy-nin of Konohagakure would learn certain things about the pink-haired kunoichi.

First there were the sleeping arrangements.

Like she had announced, they slept in her bed. The bed itself was big enough and quite nice, not being too hard or too soft, but the problem was the girl herself. She had taken the potion on the first night as she was supposed to, and fallen (literally fallen) asleep on the next moment. Kakashi had watched as Sakura's head had hit the pillow, then he had placed the covers over her back, took off his own vest, and grimaced at the thought of having to sleep with his mask on, _'Beggars can't be choosers I guess.' _And slipped between the covers. After falling asleep, he had been jolted awake by a loud 'thump', which was followed by the sound of the small items dropping on the floor from the nightstand.

Kakashi had lifted his upper body and peered over the bed's edge. On the floor lay Haruno Sakura, completely unaware of the fact that she had fallen off the bed, and took her nightstand with her. Feeling responsible, he had picked the spare girl from the floor and tucked her in again.

Her falling continued, night after night, and every time he would pick her up and tuck her in. On the following mornings she would wake up early, before Kakashi, and groan in pain at the new bruises in her shoulders and elbows.

Sometimes she would talk in her sleep, and since he was rather light sleeper (just as every other ninja was) he was bound to wake up. Some of her ramblings didn't make much sense, since they were just words like catnip, belt-strap and corona, but there were times when she was certainly talking to somebody.

"_You should tie it tighter. Otherwise the bleeding won't stop."_

"_Stop being an ass, and put your clothes back on" _

"_Arch your back just a bit more okay? I really can't draw this other way."_

" _A vampire bit me, and it didn't feel nice at all!" _

He found her shouts rather amusing, after all she would never say some of the things while awake.

But there were also times when he didn't have any idea what she was talking about.

Her speech was fast; sentences were cut half, containing rather hard medic terms.

Also there were names that she kept repeating like a mantra. Names that he hadn't heard before.

"_Hatori-sempai!" "Hatori." "Tetsu you ass!" "Don't run Mayu, you might fall."_

_Names that filled his mind with wonder._

And then there was time when her talking was absolute gibberish to him. A language that he'd heard a long, long time ago in a place forgotten, but couldn't understand a word of it.

Secondly there was the bet.

On the first night, after drying her hair, they had reached an agreement about their bet. Both of them would quit their addictions, for an unannounced time. They shook hands, and that was that.

To test her, he had mercilessly fixed himself with a cup of coffee on the following morning. She had watched him with narrowed eyes, and crossed her arms over her bust. As he had sipped the black bereave Sakura's eyes had lit up. She had crossed the small space between the kitchen table and her bookshelf, and pulled out one of her books and sat on the floor.

It had taken two minutes of Kakashi's precious time to realize what the girl was reading.

At first he had been too shocked. There was no way that she would be reading that sort of literature. Back when he had started to train team seven, all of them had nearly hated the series, hell, hadn't she just on the previous day almost banned his books?

Besides, weren't hose things a bit too _dirty_ to a person like Sakura?

"Your mug is slipping."

Her statement seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he rearranged his grip on the mug.

_Sip._

_Savour._

"You know, I don't think that that is suitable reading material for you."

Sakura lifted her eyes from the text and smirked.

"Why thank you for your concern, but I have been reading Jiraya's material since I turned fifteen."

Kakashi stared.

"Right."

He was just about to sip the rest of his coffee when she said the most unexpected thing.

"You can only thank yourself Subeke-kun."

Kakashi lost his grip, and rest of the coffee was dropped in the floor and on his pants.

The girl was a devil, a pure devil.

Then there was the way she acted.

He had expected her to be shy, even a bit of a prude, since she had said that she hadn't lived with anybody else before. What he hadn't expected was the way she walked around the flat wearing nothing but a towel, or sometimes just a T-shirt and hipsters, (or sometimes when he was really lucky, she'd walk around only in her underwear) leaving her long limbs and cleavage bare.

Sometimes she would curse and shout like a drunken sailor, and other times she would hum, sing and dance, as if there wasn't anybody around.

But then again, there was one thing that she had absolutely refused to do in his presence. Her daily trainings in yoga and taichi were things that she didn't want to show to anybody. First she had asked him to 'disappear' for two hours, and since he had refused unless she would provide a proper reason for him she had simply walked to the window, and climbed on the roof. Since he didn't want to be blamed of pushing her out of the window (or something like it) he had grabbed his vest and headed out.

Unfortunately (or was it fortunately?) he had run into Genma who had had a field day with Kakashi.

And finally there was her body.

The first time she had worn a simple towel, he had noticed all scars on her body, as if they would be the proof of her profession.

There was one long scar in her shoulder blade that had peeked under the towel, almost symmetrical scars on the back of her legs, and a strange paler area on her left shoulder as if somebody had bitten a piece of her shoulder off. If one imagined, one could almost see the bite marks.

He had not seen her bare back, but he could swear that it would have some kind of marks in it.

After noticing the scars, another thing had clearly jumped at his eye. Alas she was lean, almost skinny, but apparently not as 'flat' as she pretended. Indeed the mystery of her wrappings had been solved on the moment he had laid his eye on her towel-clad form. Apparently she preferred wrappings to bras, since it made her 'flatter' than she really was. Not that she was that 'big' to begin with, Kakashi noted to himself. Maybe even a bit smaller than the average.

'Surely, if she were to know my thoughts, she'd punch me to yesterday.'

All in all her body proved that no she wasn't a small girl anymore, and no she wasn't a damsel in need of protection. Instead she was a Kunoichi, ready to fight for her own life, and protect that was what dear to her.

And there was no way that he'd admit it ever to anybody, but he was proud of her, and of what she had became.

Sure he worried that maybe some things in her life had turned a bit too rough or bad to her, but all in all everything looked okay on the outside. The inside on the other fact…

x.X.x

The need of coffee was starting to drive her mad.

Never before had she fully understood what it meant to suffer from rehab symptoms.

Her head was killing her most of the time, her hands shook, she felt sick, and top of that she felt like bitching about everything around her.

After a week her body and mind felt like giving up, just so that the symptoms would stop, (she'd made herself ridiculous by starting an useless argument with Hatake the night before about whether they should keep the curtains closed, or not during the night.) but her pride had other plans.

She wouldn't lose this bet. She wasn't allowed to lose it, not even when she felt like hurling her stomach contents, nor when her head hurt worse than before.

Besides, she wasn't the only one with bad symptoms.

Hatake was probably having even worse time. She'd noticed how he was flexing his fingers, how he frowned most of the time, of how he would just stare into one of the pages of the books he read, without even moving his eyes. In other words, he couldn't concentrate.

The mean part of her (the one closest to the her aching head) thought that he deserved it. The nicer one just felt sorry for him. Poor bloke, being cut off of his beloved smut had apparently cost a lot. '_He might be even in a worse situation than I am right now .'_

Not that it stopped her from reading the Icha-icha series in front of him, or calling him Subeke-kun.

Sakura grinned, the latter had definitely hit its target. Kakashi had nearly lost his nerve with her. But usually he just countered with freshly brewed coffee.

Now that was just mean.

* * *

May 11th

She woke up with a jolt. Her body was covered in cold sweat, and she was gasping for air. Her heart was beating so fast that she was sure it would burst any moment now.

She was filled with panic. Nothing made sense. She was more scared than she had been in ages.

Her surroundings were still blurry, she could only make the shadow of her closet, and the end of her _'or was it theirs now?' _bed. Sakura's hands flew to her hair and she sat up. She felt like vomiting. Nausea waved inside of her, making her body tremble. The man next to her kept breathing steadily, or that what it sounded like, she couldn't be too sure of it.

She had to calm herself.

Trying to take deep and slow breathes to ease her heart she let her eyes wander to Kakashi. The man had his back turned towards her, but that wasn't a surprise. Ever since they started to share a bed he had slept like that. On his side, not facing her.

The look of him seemed to calm her somewhat. Sure her heart was still beating madly, and she was feeling like shit, but at least she was safe.

Sakura pulled her shins to her chest and leaned her head on them.

The dream had started like most of her dreams, as a memory of a past.

In her dream she had been back in Mist, back at _home_, and everything had been just like three years before. She'd been working with Mayu and Ri-kun. The atmosphere had been normal, even cheery, and suddenly everything had changed. The kids had disappeared, and she was suddenly standing in Hatori's sterile room. He had been standing in the middle of it, reaching his hand out to her. Handsome as always, lean and tall, that black hair of his and those bit too long bangs that'd covered his left eye. The white doctor's jacket open, revealing his black button shirt, and pants. Face in a small smile, and the only emotion in his eyes had been love. Just that suffocating, possessive love that wanted to claim her, own her and brand her.

She'd wanted to run to him and escape at the same time.

Hatori had just continued smiling, and his mouth had opened.

And she knew in her dream that she had lost. He had had won.

"Come here M-"

"You can't sleep?"

Her thoughts were interrupted, and she turned her head to see Kakashi laying on his back arms behind his head.

She shrugged.

"I had a bad dream. Nothing to worry about."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She was silent before answering, "I'm not so sure."

Kakashi sighed, rose up, and leaned at the wall behind them.

"You know that you don't have to. But sometimes it makes you feel better if you tell."

Sakura smiled grimly, and buried her face again in the blanket on her knees.

"Do you remember what happened after Sasuke was taken back?"

Kakashi was silent for a moment, watching the darkness outside the window.

"Vaguely. He spent six months inside. Naruto was almost constantly by his side. Sai was transferred to ANBU. But they sent him back, since he really couldn't work with those people. Yamato got his act together and finally asked Iruka out. And you, if I remember correctly left. And stayed away for three years." There was a bit of an edge in the last line.

"I was transferred." She defended. "Tsunade-shishou thought that it'd do me good to see the outside of the Fire country more than just what the missions allow. And that's the reason why I was sent to the Mist"

Kakashi lifted one silvery eyebrow. It wasn't like he hadn't known where she had been, on the contrary, but this was the first time he heard her voluntarily talk about her 'absent ' years, as Naruto had called them.

"And you stayed for three years."

"Well, yeah. That was my decision to stay that long. But the main idea was Shishou's."

"Still. Three years." His tone was nostalgic, and maybe, just maybe a bit accusing. "That's a long time. "

Sakura lifted her head, and shot her green eyes at him. Then she formed a small lopsided grin on her lips.

"Yeah. I stayed there three years. And I loved it." Another deep breath. "Besides, it was almost the same time what Naruto and Sasuke spent outside as well." Panic was slowly leaving. "Anyway, that's what I dreamed of. The past."

"So you had a nightmare of your past. Anything particular?"

Sakura stretched her left arm in front of her and clenched her fingers. Was it anything particular? Dreaming of the past? Dreaming of Hatori? Hell, it wasn't like she could just flat out say: _Well, I dreamed that the man I loved tried to suffocate me with his feelings. _

That sounded retarded even in her own ears, so she decided to keep the contents of her dream as her own business.

"No. Nothing particular. Just stuff that happened."

_A little white lie._

"Stuff, huh?"

"Yeah. Stuff."

"I take that it wasn't good stuff."

" Oh come on. What's with the curiosity? Usually you aren't even interested what happens around you, and now you're interested in my dreams?"

"You mock me Sakura-chan. I am interested in what happens around me. I just don't fuss over the minor details like most of the people do."

Sakura's eyes went wide, and her face was filled with disbelief.

"You call beating Sasuke to a pulp after he had almost raped Naruto, fussing? And drop the 'chan'. I'm not a kid anymore."

He was silent for a minute.

"Well, if you put it that way, then no, but it's quite low of you to pull that card out, since the matter was solved almost immediately after the matter, so in other words, your violence towards Sasuke at the time was in a way fussing."

"I can't believe you! How in the world would you have acted if it had been you who walked in on that?"

Kakashi thought for a moment. Yes, if it had been him walking in on that quite grotesque scene she had witnessed so many years before, how would have he reacted?

With distress? Anger? Or maybe just pure violence and protectiveness like Sakura herself had?

"That is a very good question, but were starting to get besides the point. You can't blame me for being curious. You hardly share the details of your past/journey/absence/mist time with anybody. And I think that it's either because you treasure the memories far too much to share them, or you just want to forget everything that happened or didn't happen during those three years."

He eyed her, and noticed the change in her posture right after his words. Her eyes lost their shine, and her pose changed from relaxed to stiff, almost as if the thought of sharing details would be physically uncomfortable. Then she blushed.

"That's- it's not like I- I mean not all of them but still-"

He watched quietly as she rambled onwards without making much sense. And even though she was obviously distressed, he couldn't help noticing, that her rambling was cute. As soon as the thought surfaced he started to wonder that where it had come from.

He came back to reality when he heard her taking a deep breath. Then she sighed, and buried her face deeper in her knees.

"Fine." She lifted her head, and fixated him with a firm and a daring look. "I treasure them. Not all of them are pleasant, but I still treasure my time there more than anything else."

* * *

_May 15__th__._

"I can't sleep."

_Silence._

"I haven't slept for three days."

"I am aware of that."

"If you are aware of it, why wont' you try to fix it?"

"Want me to sing you a lullaby?"

A Pillow was thrown into his face. "My my, you're in a nasty mood, aren't you Sakura-chan?"

"Shut up, Subeke-kun." She'd taken to call him by _that name_ knowing well enough how it annoyed the older man. "And I thought that I told you to lay off the 'chan'."

_Silence again. _The full moon was shining trough the window, dyeing the white carpet on the floor silver. A distant yell could be heard from the street below.

"No, seriously, I can't sleep. It's driving me up the wall."

"Just, keep trying." Kakashi's dry voice

"Unbelievable. You call that advice?" She sat up, and her voice became an octave shriller. "Keep trying, Keep trying?!? What the hell do you think I've tried?! I-"

But she was cut off, as Kakashi's left arm collided with her front, pulling her back to the mattress. In a soft hump her back hit the pillow, and her voice died in her throat. Instead of removing his arm, his hand grasped her right shoulder, while his arm pressed her chest down.

The feeling was strange. This was probably the closest physical contact they'd ever shared, if you ignored their training. He didn't like when other people touched him, nor did he like to touch people.

It wasn't uncomfortable; his arm was far enough from her throat to prevent the threat of choking. The arm itself just happened to lay with its natural weight on top of her collarbone.

Uh-huh.

"What the hell?"

"Kakashi, what do you think-"

"Just lay still." His breathing tickled her ear. And his voice was really deep. Sakura tried, she really tried to suppress the shiver that wanted to run trough her.

"Take deep breaths. And relax."

"Relax? Relax while your arm is lying atop of my breasts?!"

Sakura inhaled deeply.

"You know, your arm is quite non-relaxing."

"It's there to prevent you from moving."

"I'm not moving."

"Like I said, preventing."

She could hear the bastard smiling behind his mask.

"Fine."

She inhaled and exhaled. Over and over again, while trying to relax limbs.

Seconds turned into minutes, and she closed her eyes. Her body started to relax.

Expect that patch of skin under Kakashi's arm. It started to feel warmer than the rest of her, and she decided to ignore it. No need to arouse awkward thoughts, was there?

The steady rising of her chest lifted the arm as well. Annoying.

How in seven hells was she supposed to relax with an arm atop of her?

It amused him, really. He could tell that Sakura was quite peeved at him, but

she fought against the feeling, for the sake of relaxation.

"That's it. Breathe in trough your mouth, and exhale trough your nose."

She groaned in response.

'Now there's an interesting sound'

And once again for the 100th time he felt like a deprived old man, perving over a young girl.

Breathing.

Like sensing, that he was indeed thinking something quiteinappropriate, and not willing to share his mind, Sakura asked: "What are you thinking?"

'I just thought, that you can make quite delicious sounds with that mouth of yours. Mind sharing a few more samples? Hell, if I were to say that, she'd probably threw me out of that window.'

"I was thinking of Gai."

"Gai-sensei?" Sakura turned to face him, opened her eyes and stared at Kakashi, eyes wide with disbelief. His arm dropped to the mattress between them.

Jade green met smoky blue. Disbelief against serious. Then he winked.

Sakura stared. And then the realisation hit her, and she laughed.

She pressed her head against her pillow and continued giggling. The voice of her laughter only grew, and soon she wasn't able to control it at all. Her stomach muscles started to cramp, and she pulled her legs to her chest and continued laughing. As her shoulders shook, she could feel three days worth of tension and stress leave her body.

He stared at her. Truly she was a fascinating creature. On minute she's full of anger to scare the living daylight out of a schoolboy, and the next she laughing with such a way that was just pleasurable to watch. He didn't know which side he liked the better.

But Kakashi had to admit that all that laughing was probably good for her. The last three days she'd been awfully stressed, sporting a fighting look on her face.

Finally her laughter started to lessen. Her shoulders shook for the last time, and she dried the tears of laughter of her eyes. Then Sakura graced him a smile that would've made Naruto's knees weak.

"Thank you." Another smile. "That was relaxing."

Then she closed her eyes, and started to breathe deeply. Leaving him wide-awake with a pounding heart.

* * *

_May 19__th__._

Naruto was still on a mission. There hadn't been any messages, but that was normal, so none of them worried. Much. Sure, they missed him, (all for different reasons) but it was rarely mentioned. That was the protocol.

Sakura wished that he'd return soon. She wanted to talk to him. She needed to talk to him. The past two weeks living with Kakashi had been quite different compared to her usual way of living, and it was constantly egging her. It wasn't uncomfortable or downright horrible, just different, and she had a hard time adjusting into it. She was used to have her personal space around her, and now somebody, mainly Kakashi, was invading it. It felt bizarre. And at times (she'd reluctantly admitted to herself) exiting.

Sure she managed to sleep a bit more, but in reality it wasn't that much of a progress. The potion she had helped a bit, but since the first and worst time, she'd been quite reluctant to use it. Sure she slept like a log with it, but it also made her feel like a living dead. She'd sleep, but in her dreams, or those "trips to the fair" like she called them since it was always the same dream. Always about the damn fair, where people were celebrating, eating sugar coated apples and watching the fireworks.

All the while she knew that she wasn't really asleep. Her body would be at this stand-by setting while her mind had been paralysed. And waking up was always awful. Three days ago when she'd woken up, she'd practically thrown a still sleeping Kakashi on the floor, since she hadn't recognized him.

Joy.

She hadn't talked with Sasuke since they'd argued. She'd seen him a few times from ajar, but neither of them had approached the other. Usually in a situation where they'd had their disagreements, it'd be Naruto who'd solve their problems. He'd sit them both down, and glower next to them with his arms crossed. That was another reason for her to miss the blond. She really wanted to get the mess cleared with Sasuke. He could be such a prick at times, no make it all the time, but the stotic man was her friend.

Sakura rose from the floor where she'd been sitting (she still didn't have money for a new couch, so she had to sit on the floor.) and walked to the bathroom. She studied her reflection from the mirror, ad noticed that her hair was once again getting way too long. She'd had to ask Ino to cut it for her.

The apartment was silent. Kakashi had left to get a bite with Genma. She'd been glad to get a few moments of peace.

She stared into the mirror, fixing her gaze into the depths of her own green eyes, and let her mind wander. She sank trough memories and sensations until she could grasp and almost _feel_ the past.

It started with a small tingling sensation in her lower belly, spreading a warm flush throughout her body. A shiver ran trough her body, and Sakura closed her eyes.

It had been a long time since she'd any this sort of relaxation. Since she was almost constantly watched over by Kakashi, _this_ was almost impossible.

She let a pleasurable sigh pass her lips, as her fingers danced at the hem of her panties.

x.X.x

"So."

It amazed Kakashi how much one lousy word could tell of the incoming question. He had known from the start when Genma had come and asked for his company to dine with, that it hadn't been just because he wanted to tell him about his latest conquest.

So instead of grasping that offensive "So", he turned his attention towards the steaming bowl placed before him on the table. Tempura donburi with egg yolk.

"Oi."

To be savoured with green tea.

"Hatake."

Perfect.

"I bet she wears polka-dotted panties that drive you crazy."

At this Kakashi stopped his chopsticks at the end of his bowl, and lifted his eye from the yolk.

"Wonder if her mouth's as sweet as it seems? I bet that she just loves to suck at lollies and such, must be such a tease."

"Genma." The tone wasn't hard, if anything, it was neutral, but warning, implying that he was now close to pretty dangerous waters.

"Aaww, the famous Copynin can't take a joke?" Genma chuckled and dug into his own portion. "Anyway, it's a miracle that your little escapade isn't the talk of the village, but that's what happens when our beloved Hokage protects those close to her."

Kakashi sipped his tea.

"You're hinting that she's shut people up about this."

"Yeah." Genma chewed. "She probably has since, my lovely date a few weeks back was well _informed_, but still that was the only time when I've heard about it. I guess it would do something to peoples morale if it were known, that a student was _living_ with her sensei."

"Former sensei."

Genma looked at Kakashi with disbelief. "You think that those people who spread rumours actually care about facts? To them it's only the dirt that matter."

* * *

_May 22nd_

The street below looked cold. Despite the fact that summer was almost around the corner, the nights were still chilly, almost below zero, so that mist rose to the streets during nighttime.

Sakura sat on the windowsill with her legs curled to her chest. The only sounds in the apartment were hers and Kakashi's calm breathing.

Such relaxing sounds.

She leaned again against the wall behind her, and sighed. And shivered. Two nights in a row again, with absolutely zero hours of sleep. Great. Another embarrassing day, full of dizziness, and those moments where she'd almost fall asleep, but not quite.

It was cold, so cold. Her nightshirt (a plain tank top and a pair of pink knickers.) didn't warm her much.

She blew cold air to the glass, and watched it to foam the window.

'_It's still cold outside.' _

At 4:45 am a lone cat wanders the streets. Her toes are cold.

At 5:09 am the mist clears, leaving only a beautiful sunrise in the far east.

At 5:30 am she can hear the mailman climbing up the stairs and pushing mail trough mailboxes to peoples apartments.

At 5:35 am she can hear the mail dropping to the floor, and she rises from her post by the window. Her legs are stiff from sitting so long, and she wonders if a hot bath would ease the pain. Her bare feet make a small slapping sound on the floor. She can see the mail now, there's the paper, some rubbish, and surprisingly a neutral white envelope.

At 5:38 she's crouched by the door, gasping silently, holding her head and squeezing the letter in her hand. Shaking and praying that Kakashi wont wake yet, he can't wake up, not now. Her mind is in chaos and panic. _'How did he know where to find me!? How did he know my address?!? Hiro and the rest were the only ones to know!'_

And then the tears almost come.

But she holds it, she has to hold them in.

She can't cry now, not now, when there's another person near. And she's not ready to share this with anybody.

Breathe.

Breathe.

x.X.x

He wakes up, and notices that something's wrong. Sakura doesn't say anything.

She sits on the stool, legs crossed 'such nice legs' he thinks briefly and notices a steaming mug of coffee in front of her at the table.

He doesn't say anything.

He watches as her pale hand reaches for the mug, and bring the rim to her lips.

She sips and speaks. "I lost. Fair and square."

* * *

_AN: That's that folks, stay tuned for the next time._


	8. Chapter 8

_**May 22nd**_

She wants to tear everything apart, throw the pieces on the floor, set them on fire, and watch them burn to ashes.

But she won't do it. She can't do it. Because Sakura knows that even tough it feels like the world and every single thing it hates her and everything she is right now, it is only temporary.

It will pass.

In a few days she won't care anymore. In a few days she won't care that a complete nutcase of a man, her ex-fiancé sent her a letter. She won't care that she read it. She won't care that she almost cried. She won't care that she's terrified. And most of all, she won't care that she lost the goddamn bet because of a one crappy letter.

But right now, it's May 22nd and the world hates her with gusto.

_Breathe._

Right now she cares.

_Breathe._

So she has to control her nerves.

_Breathe_

She mustn't fail.

_Breathe_

Her hands and legs tremble a little, she tries to sit still, drink her coffee and count the minutes to tomorrow.

x.X.x

Kakashi watches her stiff form from the corner of his eye. Her legs are crossed, lips form a tight line, and there's a dark look in her eyes as she stares at the green coffee cup at the table.

He can see that something has gone terribly wrong.

He sighs and starts to mix the ingredients for tamagoyaki in a bowl. Yolks, water, soy sauce, sugar and vinegar. He pours himself a cup of joe, and starts to fry the mix in a square frying-pan.

When he's done, he rolls the omelet into a perfect roll, cuts it into small pieces and divides the food on two plates right next to cut tomatoes and cucumbers. He takes two glasses out of the cabinet and pours juice into them, and places the fresh breakfast in front of the stiff girl.

Sakura doesn't even seem to notice. She just continues to stare at her cup, as if expecting it to blow apart from the feel force of her stare.

"Sakura" She doesn't move. "Sakura." He states again, and this time he gets a reaction out of her. She liftes her head and looks straight into his eye. He's momentarily taken back by the lost stare she gives to him. She tilts her head.

"Eat."

She looks back at the table and notices for the first time that there's delicious looking breakfast before her, and she wonders for a moment when it got there.

He sees how she opens her mouth to ask something, but before she can gets the first syllable out of her mouth, her face turns pale, her hand flews to her mouth and she lurches towards the bathroom.

Then he hears her vomit long and loudly, hence she didn't have time to close the door behind her.

Kakashi sighs again and for twenty seconds he absolutely hates this, he hates his job. Then it passes, and he starts eating his breakfast. When he's done, he places the dishes in the sink, takes Sakura's glass of juice with him, and enters the bathroom.

He finds her on her stomach on the cold tile floor, clutching a towel in her right hand. He flushes the toilet and that makes her lift her face from the floor, and look irritatedly up at him.

"Sorry, I didn't realize that you wanted to save that." His comment makes her lips curl slightly.

"Jokes aside, you must feel like hell." He hands the glass carefully down to floor next to her. "Want me to get you something?"

She rises slowly to sit on the floor and leans against the wall, and shakes her head.

'_Just count the minutes. It's the only thing you can do.'_

"I'm fine." And she wonders for a moment if her voice sounded more convincing to his ears.

xXx

For three hours she doesn't move. He washes the dishes, airs the bedroom, separates the white laundry from the dark and takes the garbage. After that he's done every domestic deed in the small apartment, though a small voice in his head mutters something about the unwashed toilet, but he decides to ignore it. All that's left, is to get Sakura out of the bathroom floor, and back up to her feet. He tries to brace himself for the worst, since all his experience with women who gave him the silent treatment never ended nicely.

He opens the door, and suddenly everything that he'd planned to say fly from his head. She's still sitting in the exactly same position, hands in her lap and her eyes stare deadly in the space in front of her. There is no emotion on her face, and that creeps the crap out of Kakashi. He steps in front of her, but she doesn't seem to notice him. So he crouches, and reaches out to her. He has to call her twice before there's any sign of recognition in her eyes, and yet-

_'Do not go there. It's not like you haven't seen that look on people before.'_

_-_she looks as if everything she's ever had, has been taken away

Nothing comes to his mind.

"Could you go outside for a bit, I really need to use the shower."

It's a horrible excuse, and he knows it but it's the only one that sounds even remotely reasonable.

Her body moves stiffly, since her limbs have grown numb. She wobbles past him and closes the door behind her.

When he gets out of the steamy room, still toweling his hair, he notices that she has taken the wide windowsill as her port. He pulls his mask back up and grimaces, he hates putting it on damp skin, but right now it can't be helped.

xXx

As the day passes before her eyes, old memories start to creep up to her. Like a movie she can't turn off, they play, one by one before her.

"_This is your new assistan Meidou-san. She's come al the way from Fire country to gain more experience, please treat her kindly." _

_Not even sparing a glance to the girl standing next to Hiro, the man called Meidou speaks._

"_She's useless. I don't' need an assistant."_

_Sakura clenches her fists, Hiro notices and looks terrified. "We talked about this! You said you can't do all this work by yourslef!"_

"_Agreed, but that girls useless." _

"_You don't even know me." She finally grits trough her theet._

"_I don't need to. The fact that you were sent to here instead of staying where you were to gain expirience states more than words." He finally looks up from his papers, and for the first time in her life, Sakura sees eyes that are as green as hers. Somehow it's creepy._

"_So go play doctor somehwere else, I'm really trying to save lives here."_

_That's the moment when she realized that Sasuke wasn't really the greatest jackass in the world, he was fairly nice compared to this person._

"_Let me work here I week, and I'll prove you that I'm not useless."_

_xXx_

"_Is your friend always so charming?"_

_Hiro laughs nervously and scratches his head. "He's a bit peculiar, isn't he.?"_

"_Peculiar my ass, he just plain nasty." _

_xXx_

"_Out of the way, you're wasting my time." She pushes (or more likely shoves) Meidou-sempai out of her way, and takes the hand of a dying man._

'_Keep trying. Keep Trying. Keep Trying. Don't you dare to die on me.' Closing her eyes, and ignoring an angry protest behind her, she sends a jolt of chakra trough the joined hands, using it to locate the worst damage causing the internal bleeding. Trough the veins, pass the artery, all the way to the dying heart. Searching and healing._

_Disbelief._

_Later when all is done,and the man (Shin as Hiro called him) has opened his eyes, Sakura turns to Meidou. She's exhausted and angry, since the healing could have been easier and less life threatening for Shin-san if only the ass had let her-_

_and Meidou just stares at her._

_Admiring. Wondering. As if he's seen a ghost. "You're something different."_

_He doesn't call her by her name. Not at first. It's all about **you, **and **girl**. _

_The first time he calls her name_

_The first time he snatches her hand_

_The first time he kisses her_

_The first time she kisses him_

_The first time they have sex. _

_All these times and more play themselves inside her mind over and over again, until she can't remember what came first._

_The time when he didn't call her name._

_Meiko._

"You think that you've managed to escape, don't you?" Sakura's eyes snap open, and before her- god, before her is Meiko in all her radiant glory. Pale skin and pink hair, green eyes staring into hers.

"This is imppossible." It sounds stupid to her own ears, but Sakura can't help saying it. "This isn't real."

"Is it?" Meiko laughs. "You make me real darling." She smiles and touches Sakura's face almost too gently. That's when she notices that Meiko's fingers are ice. And that the girl has no feet. She's just floating in the middle of her appartment whitout any feet. Or scratch that, her current appartment didn't have white floorboards. Nor windows with blue curtains that Hiro had bough-

'_No. No. No-no-no-no-no-NO!' _

"Realized it already sugar?" Meiko's hand reaches again for her face, this time nails scratching her cheek. It burns.

"Pain is all in the mind."

x.X.x

Kakashi watches her sleep. He doesn't know the exact moment she fell into it, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that she sleeps. After two days, she's finally asleep. Granted, her position can't be too comfortable, but hey, you take what you get. He drapes a quilt over her slim body, in hopes of making her warmer, since the temperature is still belove 15C and he really doesn't want to take care of her if she caughts a cold.

When he turns his back to her, he hears her. She mutters something incoherent. Again, language he doesn't speak, words he cannot understand. Her speech gains speed, and becomes frantic. He turns in time to see her fall of the still, limbs in a jumble. She hits the floor head on and lays still.

"You okay?"

Her breathing's hard, loud and raspy in his ears. She lifts her head from the floor and stares at him with the same empty look and answers, "Do I look fine to you?"

Kakashi's silent. " No. You look like somebody just suckerpunched you." Sakura laughs bitterly, lifts herself up from the floor and goes to get dressed.

The day passes. After afternoon comes evening, after evening comes night. Sakura doesn't speak, but he doesn't need words to see that something wrong. Something between yesterday and today had made her slump into a passive state where nothing mattered. She didn't speak, didn't eat nor move from her new spot all day long. She leaned against her bed and stubbornly ignored the rest of the world. When natural light fades and turns to twilight Kakashi acts. He walks to her, grabs her arms and lifts her up. She looks almost angrily at him and makes an outraged sound in the back of her throat.

"Okay. Time to sleep."

"What?"Her voice is octave higher than normal."No it's not!"

"Yes it is."He hands Sakura her medication. "It's night and most people sleep at night. Also this is what our dear esteemed Hokage ordered me to do. To make sure you sleep. So nighty-night Sakura-chan." He knows that bickering won't help but honestly, she'd been driving him up the wall all day long with her sombre state.

"No..I..I dont't want to."

"Take the medicine Sakura, or I'll force you." She looks at him eyes wide, outraged.

"You wouldn't!"

"Try me." He's pretty sure he could win her in a struggle, especially now, when she hasn't eaten or slept propely in the past few days. Still, it's not like he wants to get in a hand-to-hand combat or a serious argument with her, but right at this moment this is the only way he can help her.

Finally after long silent minutes she sighs, takes the vial kakashi's holding and opens the creaking cork. She lifts the vial to her lips and pauses. Her angry face falters. "You'll wake me if I scream, right?" That's when he realises that she's actually scared of sleeping. He doesn't know what to make out of it, so he just nods. She sighs again, and drinks the whole bottle in one go. This time he manages to cath her from her shoulders before she hits the floor. As he tucks her in, he wonders if he'd have to wake to her scream.

Suprisingly this is not the night.


End file.
